WEBVTT 1 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:24.280 Hello, and welcome to Western SIV. I've got a very different kind of 2 00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:29.960 author interview for you guys this time. This is first for us on the 3 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.119 show. We're doing a piece of historical fiction. I'm going to sit down 4 00:00:34.200 --> 00:00:37.840 with author Charles Fisher and we're going to talk about his book The Eunuch. 5 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:44.880 The Unich, and of course Eunichs are not necessarily endemic to any particular culture 6 00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:49.679 or any particular time throughout the history of certainly the pre modern world. But 7 00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:55.679 his Unich happens to live during the reign of Nebecondesser. He's the great Babylonian 8 00:00:55.799 --> 00:01:00.840 monarch of the Neo Babylonian Empire. Leads to Theuest of Judah, so on 9 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:04.000 and so forth, and all of these things feature prominently in the novel. 10 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:08.680 It's an interesting it's actually kind of a dark comedy, but it's an interesting 11 00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:14.120 novel. It's really quite good. And as I mentioned again in the show, 12 00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:18.159 and you'll hear me during the interview talk about how there just aren't very 13 00:01:18.159 --> 00:01:23.239 many, if any at all, historical novels that take place during this time 14 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:26.359 period, during the time period of the very ancient world. There are some 15 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:30.680 during the classical world. But by and large, you know, we're talking 16 00:01:30.760 --> 00:01:37.079 about you know, modern history really since the American Revolution, and so to 17 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:41.159 step out there and to do something that's so different is very unique, and 18 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:45.599 it's a very well done novel, and I think it really sets the neo 19 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:51.640 Babylonian world where it should be in our history and something worth thinking about. 20 00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:53.879 If you know, we're in the holiday season. If you're thinking about a 21 00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:57.640 gift for someone who has a passion for ancient history but is looking for more 22 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:02.200 of a beach read, this is that and I highly highly recommend it. 23 00:02:02.239 --> 00:02:08.039 And so, without further ado, here is our first ever historical fiction interview 24 00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:38.039 and author Charles Fisher. All Right, and welcome back. As I mentioned 25 00:02:38.439 --> 00:02:44.800 just before in the introduction, I'm sitting down here with author Charles Fisher, 26 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:49.280 and we're talking about his book The Unich, which is a first for this 27 00:02:49.319 --> 00:02:53.120 podcast, which was kind of fun. We're doing historical fiction for the first 28 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:57.479 time, and I've wanted to do historical fiction for a long time, and 29 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:00.560 I think there's a lot of important things to talk about with this book, 30 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:07.360 specifically that I'm going to get into. But because the idea of a eunuch, 31 00:03:07.719 --> 00:03:10.319 I'm guessing all my listen, you guys all know what that is. 32 00:03:10.960 --> 00:03:19.719 But because that concept transcends a lot of places and a lot of times, 33 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:23.280 I was hoping to ask you as sort of an initial question to sort of 34 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:28.240 ground us in. Okay, where are we? Where does this book take 35 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:31.240 place, what time period are we in, and what should we be looking 36 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:38.360 for as it begins? Sure, the book takes place in sixth century bcea 37 00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:46.680 Babylon and it tells the story of Babylonian king Nebukenezer the Second and it's the 38 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:53.039 recollections of a Unich harem scribed by the name of Nergal, and he's going 39 00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:58.479 to tell the story of the king's invasion of Judah, the Kingdom of Judah, 40 00:03:58.759 --> 00:04:04.960 which happened in five eighty nine BCE. Yeah, and that kind of 41 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:10.319 brings me to my first question, because if you go even right now to 42 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:14.719 a library, or if you go to Amazon, or if you go to 43 00:04:14.719 --> 00:04:18.519 your local public school, what you'll notice is that there's a lot of historical 44 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:25.879 fiction. But there's actually very very little historical fiction from the ancient world. 45 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:30.199 Very little. In fact, I tried my hand at some just because I 46 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:33.319 felt like there wasn't any and there were great stories that need to be told, 47 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:39.319 but the vast majority, I would say, based on my research and 48 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:43.759 teaching experience, is going to be essentially American revolution forward. Is is what 49 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:47.000 you tend to get, which is amazing that we get so little in many 50 00:04:47.160 --> 00:04:49.480 way shapes and form. By the way, and I should say this before 51 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:55.160 anybody sends me an email. When I say that there aren't many works prior 52 00:04:55.240 --> 00:05:01.040 to seventeen seventy six, I am excluding the genre of historic romantic fiction. 53 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:05.480 Okay, if it's a romance novel that I'm not counting that as historical fiction. 54 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:10.839 No offense to all the romance novel fans out there, but it's just 55 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:15.600 a little bit too far afield. So I wanted to ask you what made 56 00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:20.000 you pick this age? What made you pick the the era of a nevogad 57 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:25.639 Ezer, Like it's it's ancient, and it's quite ancient in reality, so 58 00:05:26.079 --> 00:05:29.879 you know this is pre Roman Empire and all of that. So why did 59 00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:33.399 you choose that in the first place, Because it's so unique. I chose 60 00:05:33.439 --> 00:05:39.040 it in part because of the name Babylon and all the kind of symbolic energy 61 00:05:39.160 --> 00:05:43.800 around that that term. I grew up in the Midwest, and you know, 62 00:05:43.800 --> 00:05:46.959 in the middle part of the twentieth century, and it primarily kind of 63 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:50.480 Christian, kind of a vague Christian culture, and the word Babylon had all 64 00:05:50.519 --> 00:05:56.920 this image of decadence and power and you know, pagan little, you know, 65 00:05:57.040 --> 00:06:00.639 sexual license. It was. It was this sybyl So there was always 66 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:06.439 that kind of hovering in the background. Another reason I think I chose to 67 00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:15.040 write it about nebukanez Are in particular. I was interested in the theme of 68 00:06:15.160 --> 00:06:21.879 war and unintended consequences when I started the novel around the time of the Second 69 00:06:21.879 --> 00:06:31.319 Iraq War, and the unit takes place in what is now modern day Iraq. 70 00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:38.560 When the US army invaded Baghdad in March of two thousand and three, 71 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:45.519 the antiquities museum was sacked and about fifteen thousand antiquities went on the black market. 72 00:06:45.639 --> 00:06:49.279 And so the premise of the novel is that there are these connuniform cablets, 73 00:06:49.519 --> 00:06:58.240 right, which is the writing system of the Sumerian and Akkadian and Babylonian 74 00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:05.639 cultures of that time, and the novel is a purported translation of these tablets. 75 00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:12.000 And we can get into that as well. The novel is a purported 76 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:17.279 translation of the Babylonian Chronicles, which are a series of historical tablets that tell 77 00:07:17.839 --> 00:07:21.600 about Debuequinezar and his invasion of Judah and so and I thought this kind of 78 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:27.959 parallel of the US invading Iraq Uh, you know, this old Babylonian kingdom 79 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:32.279 invading Judah, because that had a lot of historical consequences which we can talk 80 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:35.759 about as well down the line, and so that was kind of part of 81 00:07:35.800 --> 00:07:42.279 my decision. Well, it's interesting, and it's also kind of interesting to 82 00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:46.879 focus in on the idea of war and the specifically war in the ancient and 83 00:07:46.959 --> 00:07:51.120 classical world, because it's so different from our I mean, our modern concept 84 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:56.560 of sort of total war is very is very quite modern, especially if you 85 00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:00.800 if you take a sort of global view of history read you know, the 86 00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:03.720 people who would have if you if you were in the path of an army, 87 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:09.800 your life would have been dramatically impacted. But if you weren't necessarily in 88 00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:16.600 the path that army, then you might not have been as cognizant of the 89 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:20.319 conflict as certainly we are today. Part of that's information based, and part 90 00:08:20.319 --> 00:08:26.120 of that's just simply a nature of how our economy functions relative to there. 91 00:08:26.199 --> 00:08:31.600 So I thought that the idea of bringing to life the idea of conflict in 92 00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:35.399 the ancient world, and the other other thing that's really that's that's interesting about 93 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:39.559 the novel is just the idea of just how prevalent conflict was. And I 94 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:46.039 think anybody who has sort of studied the past understands that, you know, 95 00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:50.000 great kings, emperors, so on and so forth didn't necessarily have to have 96 00:08:50.519 --> 00:08:56.240 a reason per se for beginning a conflict that's going to affect the lives of 97 00:08:56.320 --> 00:09:01.080 hundreds of or thousands of individuals. You know, the were oftentimes individual decisions. 98 00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:03.399 And that guess isn't an evocan hazer, and I want to come back 99 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:07.879 to him later, but I did want to ask, because this is something 100 00:09:07.879 --> 00:09:11.320 that I myself wrestled with, is did you feel like it was easier or 101 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:18.039 more difficult to write about a distant past for which we just don't have that 102 00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:24.960 many And I mean that by comparison to relative term that many sources. Well 103 00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:31.159 surprised that there are actually plenty of sources on the Mesopotaming world. The language 104 00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:35.240 wasn't They didn't cracked a Kadian language until the middle of the nineteenth century, 105 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:41.320 unlike Egyptian, which they well, they didn't figure out Egyptian either until the 106 00:09:41.399 --> 00:09:46.720 early part of the nineteenth century. So anyway, there's this tremendous amount of 107 00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:56.399 these records, these canutiform tablets, chronicles of king's reigns. The Messipotating culture 108 00:09:56.440 --> 00:10:01.320 produced a tremendous amount of literature. The Epic of Gilgamesh's perhaps the most famous, 109 00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:05.919 but there are a number of other myths and poems that are available to 110 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:09.679 the student. For a time, I was a student at Harvard Divinity School 111 00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:15.159 and my best friend was doing a PhD in a seriology, which means she 112 00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:20.799 was learning Akkadian, Babylonian and Hebrew. And my friendship with her opened up 113 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:24.840 this world of study to me. And it was from her that I got 114 00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:30.159 the bibliography, you know, a list of twenty or so books, and 115 00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:33.320 I didn't I don't read German or French, so they were they were primarily 116 00:10:33.320 --> 00:10:37.720 in English, and so I spent a lot of time reading all these kind 117 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:45.200 of academic books on Assyria, Babylon, Mesopotamia, you know, Israel, 118 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:48.759 Judah, et cetera, et cetera, to help me kind of reconstruct the 119 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:54.080 world so it's out there, but it's a it's kind of a niche academic 120 00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:58.440 area when it comes to the ancient world, in part because it's so demanding. 121 00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:03.679 The linguist thick requirements are so demanding. Learning these dead languages is really, 122 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:07.279 really tough, and Harvard only produces about, you know, two or 123 00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:13.639 three graduates in this field a year if that. Yeah, I've always felt 124 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:20.480 like if you are going to be one of these very specialized ancient or I 125 00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:26.480 would be honest, even some medieval historians who have to learn something like old 126 00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:31.480 French, for example, I have to read Carolingian script. It's really like 127 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.440 having to play ice hockey in that like, yes, you have to you 128 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:37.679 have to learn the sport, but you have to learn to skate first. 129 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:41.519 You know, you have to learn how to do this additional skill to first 130 00:11:41.639 --> 00:11:48.399 open the door to do that. But linealg Yeah, as an old hockey 131 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:52.559 player from the Midwest, that's I'm a very old hockey player as well. 132 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:58.080 I grew up in Minnesota. There was an ice break on every corner from 133 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:01.960 Wisconsin. So it's similar. It's all right, okay, we're speaking the 134 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:03.279 same language. Yeah we are, we are. I know where you're coming 135 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:07.879 from. But I wanted to follow up on that last question just a little 136 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:11.679 bit because as you were talking, I guess what I'm what I'm wondering is 137 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:16.360 if you write a book about the Cuban missile crisis, Right, there's video 138 00:12:16.919 --> 00:12:20.720 of JFK. Like, you know, you know kind of how he behaves, 139 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:24.080 you know a lot more about his personality. Yes, we have the 140 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:30.120 tablets, but we don't really know. I did one. I did a 141 00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:33.399 historical fiction about the Battle of Kottash with Ramsey's the Great Ramsey's the second. 142 00:12:33.559 --> 00:12:39.519 I don't really know what he was like as a person, So that both 143 00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:43.759 leaves a lot open for you as an author. But at the same time, 144 00:12:43.960 --> 00:12:48.440 like I don't know if it's more constraining. I just kind of wanted 145 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:52.279 your opinion on that. Yeah, no, what did I do? I 146 00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:54.320 mean for the visual stuff, I checked out all the art, you know, 147 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:58.720 I am. I did a bit of travel during the time I was 148 00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:01.799 writing the novel. I went to the Louver in Paris, the British Museum 149 00:13:01.840 --> 00:13:05.879 in London, the met Museum in New York, and they have all sorts 150 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:09.279 of not a lot of antiquities, but more than you would think. So 151 00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:13.559 for example, when I was in the Louver, they have the winged bullman 152 00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:18.720 sculptures from Ashra Banna Paul's palace, right, and these things are about, 153 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:22.120 you know, you know, thirty feet tall. So I got to look 154 00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:26.159 at those. When I was in the British Museum, I saw all the 155 00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:28.919 bar release from Ashra Bana Paul's palace. He's a Syrian, but it's pretty 156 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:35.799 much the same culture. And these these were wall sculptures of what the palaces 157 00:13:35.879 --> 00:13:39.480 looked like. They showed the king hunting lions and all that stuff. So 158 00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:45.679 you know, I took a lot from the art sculptures. And when it 159 00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:52.480 comes to writing any type of fiction, I mean you're always doing world building, 160 00:13:52.600 --> 00:13:56.679 even if you're writing about twenty first century America. That twenty first century 161 00:13:56.840 --> 00:14:01.600 America is an imagined reality. It's a similacrum, right, It's not the 162 00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:07.480 real thing, and so it just has it has to be plausible, it 163 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:11.000 has to be believable. And so from my study I got to all the 164 00:14:11.240 --> 00:14:15.879 you know, I learned the religion, the name of the gods, I 165 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:18.759 knew what kind of food they all ate, I knew what the clothing was 166 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:22.639 like, and it was all about kind of constructing a voice that didn't sound 167 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:28.639 too contemporary, that had a slightly archaic feel, you know, and then 168 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:33.759 translated into English. So you just had to give the illusion of sixth century 169 00:14:33.799 --> 00:14:39.600 BCE, because there's no way you're ever going to capture what it was really 170 00:14:39.679 --> 00:14:45.240 like all historical fiction is, it's like science fiction. It's speculative. There's 171 00:14:45.279 --> 00:14:48.000 no way we we don't even know what like life was like in Henry the 172 00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:52.720 eighth time period. I mean, because of course, there was that famous 173 00:14:52.759 --> 00:14:56.919 historical novel by Hillary Mantel wolf Hall that they made into a TV series and 174 00:14:56.960 --> 00:15:01.320 it was a big, u very best seller. I mean, everybody read 175 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:05.840 it, you know. But you know, she's not reproducing uh you know, 176 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:11.159 you know, sixteenth century English. She she kind of came up with 177 00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:16.120 her own dialect that sounded like that, right, And again, it just 178 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:18.600 has to be credible or believable. And so that's what I was kind of 179 00:15:18.639 --> 00:15:24.279 working at, working at as a writer to give the illusion of of of 180 00:15:24.279 --> 00:15:28.559 of Babylon. I was never going to capture Babylon in and of itself. 181 00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:31.159 That if that makes any sense, I think it makes total sense, And 182 00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:35.879 I think there needs to be a caveat at the beginning of any historic work 183 00:15:35.879 --> 00:15:39.919 of historical fiction that this is not history. This is not a biography of 184 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:43.720 Henry the Eighth, this is not a biography of nevgen As we like, 185 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:50.399 this is intended both to entertain and to educate. To an extent, it's 186 00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:54.399 it's intended to be both. And I think that that's really sort of necessary 187 00:15:54.480 --> 00:16:00.399 to get in. And so the book does take the the style or the 188 00:16:00.440 --> 00:16:06.440 narrative structures. We're following these tablets right there, they're reconstructions of the tablets. 189 00:16:06.679 --> 00:16:07.679 So I was hoping you could tell us a little bit more about the 190 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:12.960 tablets themselves, and like, where where this idea came from? And you 191 00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:17.519 know, you've obviously studied the actual tablets, and so how did you try 192 00:16:17.559 --> 00:16:19.200 to construct similarities or where did you where did you go with all that? 193 00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:26.879 Yeah, when you open the book itself, each each chapter is entitled Tablet 194 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:33.679 one, Tablet two. And so I wanted to I wanted to reproduce what 195 00:16:33.039 --> 00:16:41.960 actual translations of Babylonian tablets look like. And for my model, I used 196 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:48.600 the Penguin translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. And so one of the things 197 00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:52.919 about these ancient tablets is that many of them are damaged right by time, 198 00:16:52.039 --> 00:16:57.879 by fire, by war, by neglect, right and there'll be you know, 199 00:16:59.519 --> 00:17:03.079 app ser lakuta or parts of it will be damaged. And so when 200 00:17:03.079 --> 00:17:10.279 you're reading the English translation in the Penguin edition, they'll have these little brackets 201 00:17:10.279 --> 00:17:14.640 that say, you know, seventy seven lines damaged, or they'll have a 202 00:17:14.680 --> 00:17:18.920 bracket where they speculate what the word is. They're not sure but context suggest 203 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:25.519 it's the pronoun heat, for example. So in my novel, I replicated 204 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:30.039 or reduplicated that that look that feel, so that the book looks like an 205 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:36.000 actual academic translation, and I kind of played I played around that. I 206 00:17:36.039 --> 00:17:42.480 played around with that motif for my own kind of narrative purposes. So that 207 00:17:42.839 --> 00:17:47.480 was fun to do. Yeah, and it kind of makes sense because then 208 00:17:47.519 --> 00:17:52.279 it'll even allows you a narrative device. Then as you're going, you know, 209 00:17:52.359 --> 00:17:56.640 to sort of deliberately leave sections out as needed, which allows the story 210 00:17:56.680 --> 00:18:03.359 to build in a really really fastating way. The moment that I picked up 211 00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:06.640 the book, you know, because I didn't know I didn't necessarily know what 212 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:08.880 time period. I knew it was going to be, you know, Babylon, 213 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:15.559 but I didn't know exactly when. So, but Babylon and certainly Sumer 214 00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:22.359 Samaria. I mean you can see it differently. You know that's is very 215 00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:27.279 old, even by the age of nebucate Ezer is very very old. And 216 00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:32.759 so I was curious to know, like, was there ever a time when 217 00:18:32.839 --> 00:18:37.880 you thought about going back further? Because I I won't lie to you. 218 00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:42.240 I have always been fascinated with the beginning of things. I think it's wildly 219 00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:48.400 classical in ancient history. Is I'm those first cities, the first people when 220 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:52.200 they built the first zigarot, the first person to come up with that idea, 221 00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:55.240 That idea of just fascinates me. And we don't know a great deal 222 00:18:55.240 --> 00:18:59.920 about of course, you know how that happened, But it's just the idea 223 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:03.200 of that is so powerful in my mind. I was just curious if you 224 00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:07.119 ever thought about, well, do I do I go a little bit further 225 00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:11.880 back? Well, the thing about sumer is that they haven't figured out that 226 00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:18.960 language, right. They don't think that Sumerian was even part of the Semitic 227 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:26.079 language family, of which Babylonian and Nicicadian are part of. Hebrew. Babylonian 228 00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:30.480 Nicadian are part of the Semitic language is sumer is this is great unknown they're 229 00:19:30.519 --> 00:19:37.599 not even sure of its origins. Well, that's a good question. I 230 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:41.200 was interested in all of that. I was interested in Sumer, I was 231 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:47.200 interested in Old Babylon. I was interested in Syria. And then Nebukiinezar is 232 00:19:47.240 --> 00:19:52.920 really this kind of late version of this culture. In fact, that was 233 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.400 part of my choice. By the time you get to the sixth century Nebu 234 00:19:56.440 --> 00:20:03.359 Cadezer, the cultures didn't decline. Even the writing system is about to become 235 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:07.720 obsolete, right, you know, canue form on clay tablets, that's that's 236 00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:10.680 about to go the way of all flesh. And what's going to take it 237 00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:14.920 place. What's going to take its place is papyrus writing. You know, 238 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.720 writing on papyrus and tablets are going to be obsolete. And I thought that 239 00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:23.119 was a great parallel because we're at a state, we're in a place in 240 00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:30.319 written history where the book, the codex is about to disappear into the tablet 241 00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:37.039 of the computer or the kindle or write your MacBook. And and so that 242 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:42.279 switch I found interesting, Right, this idea of of a culture and it's 243 00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:48.440 twilight, and of course I wanted to write about the invasion of Judah, 244 00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:53.920 because that was a big event in Jewish history. Not only Didbi Kinezar raise 245 00:20:53.960 --> 00:21:00.440 the city, but he destroyed the temple and then initiated the Babylonian captivity. 246 00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:06.880 And one of the questions I was interested when it came to these kind of 247 00:21:07.640 --> 00:21:17.119 imperial wars was the issue oftended unintended consequences. Right, So you've got Babylon 248 00:21:18.039 --> 00:21:23.680 taking down Jerusalem and really beginning what is the diaspora of the Jews? And 249 00:21:25.559 --> 00:21:32.799 you know that ended that diaspora, you know, had its endpoint in the 250 00:21:32.839 --> 00:21:38.960 show what the Jewish community calls the catastrophe the Holocaust, right, and then 251 00:21:40.119 --> 00:21:44.640 that led to the birth of modern day Israel. You just don't know what 252 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:52.000 the consequences of any action are, and so when our country invaded Iraq in 253 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:56.240 two thousand and three, it's like, you know, what possibly could go 254 00:21:56.359 --> 00:21:59.880 wrong? What are the consequences of that? And of course we've seen that 255 00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:03.079 play out over the last twenty years, for good and for ill, And 256 00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:07.799 so I was interested in that question. So it kind of circle back to 257 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:11.480 your question. Yeah, I was interested in all of that. It would 258 00:22:11.480 --> 00:22:15.240 have been really fun to go back to the origins. But I had a 259 00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:22.720 specific reason for narrowing in on Babylon in its end stages, and within a 260 00:22:22.759 --> 00:22:29.960 generation Persia the Persians takeover and become the dominant power player in that region. 261 00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:37.440 This really is kind of the end the Neo Babylonian Empire under Navican Azer, 262 00:22:37.480 --> 00:22:42.119 who's the strongest of the kings of his line by any stretch of the imagination. 263 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:51.519 Is because for the longest time you've had various regional powers contesting themselves. 264 00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:56.079 You do have Greater Egypt that pops up for a little bit under Ramseys, 265 00:22:56.440 --> 00:23:03.200 but that's long long gone time that we even get to Nebekinezer and listeners of 266 00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:07.279 the show, remember you know we're talking we're talking Iron age now. So 267 00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:12.960 the Bronze Age has collapsed, the chaos from that has all played itself out, 268 00:23:14.039 --> 00:23:19.000 The Assyrians come back, and then in a moment's the historical I'm gonna 269 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:22.440 put it to you this way, in an historical blink of the eye, 270 00:23:22.119 --> 00:23:26.119 the Persians are going to come rolling in. You know, the Persians, 271 00:23:26.279 --> 00:23:32.160 Iranians, whichever whichever term you choose, is are going to roll in. 272 00:23:32.279 --> 00:23:34.799 Every and everything is going to change, and then very little is going to 273 00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:40.039 change for a long time. You know, yes, the Romans and some 274 00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:44.359 of Alexander's successors will kind of push back and forth after a very short period 275 00:23:45.319 --> 00:23:51.559 of Greek Macedonian rule. And so this is really an interesting time period because 276 00:23:51.559 --> 00:23:56.759 it's a twilight of the very ancient, like the very ancient is about to 277 00:23:56.880 --> 00:24:00.039 start to give way to what is typically the classic period. And I find 278 00:24:00.039 --> 00:24:04.920 that really interesting that, yeah, the time period's really cool. And and 279 00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:10.079 you all you make a great point about language, and that is that when 280 00:24:10.079 --> 00:24:11.480 people ask me, like, well, why do you start the show where 281 00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:15.759 you do, and it's like, well, because there isn't language before then, 282 00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:21.240 because before then it's just anthropology. I don't I don't know really what 283 00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:23.359 happened, like we have some movement, you know, history of the movement 284 00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:27.240 of people and so on and so forth. But another great example is you 285 00:24:27.240 --> 00:24:30.160 know linear A. We don't. We don't. We don't have any translation 286 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:36.839 for linear A. You know when right now, Hey, I can do 287 00:24:36.839 --> 00:24:41.599 that. Now that I would, I would be a new fan. But 288 00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:45.000 but up until that point, I'll remain a little skeptical. But you know, 289 00:24:45.079 --> 00:24:48.799 that would be a may I mean, we don't really know what to 290 00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:53.039 make of that Minoan civilization because we simply can't read what it wrote. But 291 00:24:55.880 --> 00:24:59.119 coming back to your novel, I'm interested to know, like, were there 292 00:24:59.160 --> 00:25:04.279 aspects of Babylonian culture that you really wanted to be sure that you got into 293 00:25:04.319 --> 00:25:11.559 the novel, And if so, why, good question. I've thought about 294 00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:17.039 that a number of things I wanted to get into the novel. I wanted 295 00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:22.880 to get the kind of architectural look. For example, there was a tremendous 296 00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:26.680 wall around the city, and there were half a dozen gates, and the 297 00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:30.119 most famous of which is the Ishtar Gate, which you can see in Berlin, 298 00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:36.000 which is just this beautiful edifice of that that's painted in Lapis Lazuli, 299 00:25:36.039 --> 00:25:38.480 and it has the it has the dragons and the bulls and all of it 300 00:25:38.519 --> 00:25:41.599 there right, And so I wanted to get that image. And at one 301 00:25:41.640 --> 00:25:48.799 point in my novel, Nurgel is the narrator, and he's named after the 302 00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:53.880 the consort of a Rishkigal, who is the queen of the underworld, andle 303 00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:00.599 is her concert, her kind of her handman. So it's been say handmade 304 00:26:00.640 --> 00:26:04.960 and whatever the male equivalent of that is. So nrgyl uh Is is originally 305 00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:12.200 an Assyrian young boy boy that's taken when Ninevah is sacked by Nebu Kinezer's father, 306 00:26:12.319 --> 00:26:18.200 Nabo Palaza, and so he gets deported into Babylon, and his first 307 00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:22.240 view of the city he goes through the Ishtar gate and sees the ziggarat right, 308 00:26:25.240 --> 00:26:29.799 and then subsequently he's castrated for the king's harem. And so I wanted 309 00:26:29.839 --> 00:26:33.240 to get that in there. I wanted to get that entry through the Ishtar 310 00:26:33.319 --> 00:26:34.759 gate, which is an issue, of course, is the goddess of love 311 00:26:36.759 --> 00:26:41.799 and Nirgo of course is going to be uh maimed, right uh and then 312 00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:47.680 enslaved. And so I thought that there was a nice kind of symbolic resonance 313 00:26:47.720 --> 00:26:51.200 there. And then the ziggrette, of course, is this this great phallic 314 00:26:51.480 --> 00:26:56.119 object, right? And I wasn't even thinking so much of the historical cigaratte. 315 00:26:56.200 --> 00:27:00.720 I was thinking of the Tower of Babel as is portrayed in Genesis. 316 00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:04.920 I was thinking of Brougel's great paintings of the cigarette as this giant edifice, 317 00:27:06.039 --> 00:27:10.559 right, something out of a Ridley Scott science fiction movie, you know, 318 00:27:10.599 --> 00:27:15.759 something out of Blade Runner. So my cigarette isn't really quite historical. It's 319 00:27:15.799 --> 00:27:22.319 more of an imaginative edifice with seventy two. It has seventy two floors to 320 00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:26.559 it, so it's much larger than the actual historical Cigaatte. So I did 321 00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:33.000 some I played around with that image. I wanted to get the canal system 322 00:27:33.240 --> 00:27:40.599 all right. Basically, they invented bringing in water to the desert, right, 323 00:27:41.079 --> 00:27:47.640 Babylon was was built over a desert, and they and of course between 324 00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:49.200 the two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and they had this tremidous 325 00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:56.799 canal system right to irrigate the land. And one of the premises of my 326 00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:02.319 novel is that there's a drought and famine in Babylon at this point, right, 327 00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:07.240 that the canals are dry and the king has to do something about it. 328 00:28:07.319 --> 00:28:11.839 And this kind of connects up to another aspect of Mesopotamia and Babylon that 329 00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:14.759 I wanted to get into the book, and that's the religion, which was 330 00:28:14.839 --> 00:28:19.039 essentially a fertility religion. And so you've got this fertility religion in the middle 331 00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:22.000 of the drought, and the king is the high priest of this religion. 332 00:28:22.319 --> 00:28:29.559 And one of the premises of my plot is Nebukinizer is sexually impotent. He's 333 00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:33.240 this is he's an aged king. It's you know, he's in late middle 334 00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:37.960 age and he's something like an aged rock star who is like e ft out. 335 00:28:37.039 --> 00:28:41.400 He's exhausted and bored with sex, and he can no longer you know, 336 00:28:41.559 --> 00:28:45.680 act as the you know, the symbol of fertility. And so his 337 00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:52.920 kind of his impotence and his boredom with his harem poses an agricultural crisis, 338 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:57.400 had a big political problem for the court, and the only solution for that, 339 00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:02.799 of course, is to go to war at the king's enemies. And 340 00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:04.640 so that's kind of the premise of the novel. And then all this is 341 00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:08.119 told from the point of view of the eunuch, who is who witnesses the 342 00:29:08.200 --> 00:29:12.640 king's boredom and an impotence in their Actually mentioned by the way that The Unich 343 00:29:12.680 --> 00:29:15.640 is a comic novel, a darkly comic novel, and so I was looking 344 00:29:15.640 --> 00:29:22.240 for situations that I could exploit for I think that comes through, and I 345 00:29:22.319 --> 00:29:26.200 think it makes a lot of sense to do it from that perspective, because 346 00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:33.480 the eunuch is throughout history and you know, whether we're talking about this period 347 00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:40.680 of Babylonian history or we're talking about you know, even the Ottoman Empire later 348 00:29:40.759 --> 00:29:44.759 on, the Unich is somebody who is both without and within, you know, 349 00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:48.720 they are sort of the ultimate outsider, and for that reason, for 350 00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:55.279 that reason they are, they are given that inner access to see things that 351 00:29:55.359 --> 00:29:59.559 other people don't get to see because of course they can't procreate, and so 352 00:29:59.599 --> 00:30:04.599 there's the there's no danger for them, at least from the viewpoint the people 353 00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:11.640 now, the Romans. Yeah, he's the ultimate. He's the ultimate outsider 354 00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:15.920 insider. Right, So he's going to claim I've got the real story here. 355 00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:22.119 I'm going to deviate from the official script, the propaganda around the war, 356 00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:23.759 and I'm going to tell you the real story. And moreover, he 357 00:30:23.839 --> 00:30:30.279 claims that his castration has given him a certain kind of prophetic inside, in 358 00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:37.559 fact, an inside that can penetrate through the lie. So I purposely use 359 00:30:37.640 --> 00:30:41.799 that social metaphor, right, that he's got a kind of a spiritual sense 360 00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:48.839 or a third eye after his castration to see into the reality, you know, 361 00:30:48.920 --> 00:30:56.519 behind the official curtain. And he clearly for himself. I did want 362 00:30:56.559 --> 00:30:59.759 to ask you because as I was reading it, you know, part of 363 00:30:59.799 --> 00:31:02.680 it was thinking like, oh gosh, this kind of sounds like a very 364 00:31:02.680 --> 00:31:07.920 ancient, precopious this kind of sounds like a very very ancient secret history, 365 00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:11.160 you know, after the fact, sort of uncovered, like, well, 366 00:31:11.160 --> 00:31:18.160 here's a real dirt on here's the real dirt on Justinian. Yeah, the 367 00:31:18.319 --> 00:31:21.839 models. I wanted to do a version of that, absolutely. Yeah. 368 00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:23.039 I was interested in that because I thought, ah, it kind of sounds 369 00:31:23.039 --> 00:31:26.960 like, kind of sounds like that's what's going on here. But I thought, 370 00:31:27.160 --> 00:31:30.640 you just kind of made a good point. But so you make your 371 00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:33.640 zigarot much much larger than it would have been historically. But one of the 372 00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:40.559 things that it always comes back to me when I'm reading about very ancient history 373 00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:45.559 is just trying to visually understand what this would have been like. And not 374 00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:51.960 for me, but for somebody who's coming who's been captured in war, or 375 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:59.200 who's coming from the rural parts of the Babylonian Empire, and for the first 376 00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:04.119 time is seeing the walls of Babylon, which you know, according to some 377 00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:08.240 sources, you know, we're at parts glazed in this blue sort of shining 378 00:32:08.319 --> 00:32:13.720 glass, so that you'd see them from so far away, and you've never 379 00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:17.680 seen you've never seen a building, you know, more than a story maybe 380 00:32:17.720 --> 00:32:22.359 two stories tall, and now for the first time perhaps the cigarrotte does look 381 00:32:22.440 --> 00:32:28.319 like it's seventy two floors in height, because you to say that this is 382 00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:30.880 someone going from rural America to New York City. I don't think captures it. 383 00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:36.759 I really don't. I think to try to really understand, the visual 384 00:32:36.920 --> 00:32:40.960 aspects are so daunting. Did you find it that way as you were trying 385 00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:47.599 to describe it? Because I've always struggled with how to put that right spin 386 00:32:47.720 --> 00:32:52.240 on it so that you'd really get the sense of the awe inspiring glory of 387 00:32:52.279 --> 00:32:54.960 the thing that this person is facing. Well, I mean that's where you 388 00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:59.559 have to kind of rely on your own kind of fictive powers of invention. 389 00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:05.200 Right, you have to use language to create not only the visual image of 390 00:33:05.240 --> 00:33:07.960 the ziggurat the stargate, but you have to tell it from the point of 391 00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:15.839 view of a very scared and fearful and traumatized twelve year old boy. So 392 00:33:15.880 --> 00:33:20.599 you have to kind of inhabit uh. I had an inhabit nrgl as a 393 00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:25.359 traumatized young boy, right being you know, you know, being led by 394 00:33:25.359 --> 00:33:30.440 a bunch of thuggish guards, and he's got these chains around his neck. 395 00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:34.000 They're all they have these kind of neck chains and he's tied, and he's 396 00:33:34.039 --> 00:33:37.000 going in there with he is and he has a brother that he's with, 397 00:33:37.920 --> 00:33:42.319 And so I had to kind of inhabit it, inhabit that point of view 398 00:33:42.839 --> 00:33:45.319 and imagine what it would look like to him after all that he's been through, 399 00:33:45.359 --> 00:33:49.440 because his city has been attacked and it's been raised. He's watched his 400 00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:54.440 father murdered, He's watched his brother, uh, his older brother gets raped 401 00:33:54.480 --> 00:34:00.960 by the soldiers. He sees that and you know, endures, you know, 402 00:34:01.400 --> 00:34:07.199 a couple hundred mile march from Nineveh to Babylon. And so I had 403 00:34:07.199 --> 00:34:10.079 to kind of figure out what that would look like, what that would feel 404 00:34:10.119 --> 00:34:14.480 like, and then describe it from that point of view. And so that's 405 00:34:14.519 --> 00:34:17.920 the challenge of the writer, right, And so I had I had I 406 00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:22.320 saw the pictures of what the zigarette looks like. I had an idea of 407 00:34:22.360 --> 00:34:27.159 what I wanted to look like. You know, I'd seen the ishtar gate, 408 00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:30.440 you know, in the museum at Berlin, and so so I had 409 00:34:30.480 --> 00:34:35.079 to just kind of make that happen. It's like there was a it's like 410 00:34:35.119 --> 00:34:37.559 a process of alchemy. Really. You have all these little things that you 411 00:34:37.639 --> 00:34:42.599 have to or maybe you're or it's like cooking. You're throwing all this stuff 412 00:34:42.599 --> 00:34:46.440 into the sauce and trying to make it come together. And of course, 413 00:34:46.679 --> 00:34:52.840 uh, there was a lot of revision in rewriting the chapter in which young 414 00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:58.079 Nrbal and his brother Europe entered the city. I mean, I mean I 415 00:34:58.119 --> 00:35:02.480 rewrote that five or six times trying to get it right. Oh, which 416 00:35:02.480 --> 00:35:06.920 is understandable. It's a work in progress, always no work of writing. 417 00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:08.840 I suppose it's ever tu done. You just run out of time, but 418 00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:15.559 we're retired writing. Yeah. Were there any parts of the novel that were 419 00:35:15.159 --> 00:35:22.599 particularly difficult to write or particularly enjoyable? Oh? Yeah, absolutely. I 420 00:35:22.679 --> 00:35:24.840 enjoyed writing most of it. But for me, when it comes to I 421 00:35:24.840 --> 00:35:30.280 didn't really have trouble. Well, yeah, I think the hardest thing to 422 00:35:30.280 --> 00:35:37.960 write. At one point I wanted to write about Babylon, the Babylonian army 423 00:35:38.760 --> 00:35:45.480 invading Judah and the battle and a battle that would take place below the walls 424 00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:49.840 of the city. For a long time, I tried to write that war 425 00:35:49.960 --> 00:35:54.760 scene right. And yeah, to do that, I would look at other 426 00:35:54.920 --> 00:36:00.760 novels that wrote about battle scenes, and I went to Tolstoy is Warren Peace. 427 00:36:00.519 --> 00:36:05.199 He writes about the Battle of Austerlitz and Bordino and all that stuff. 428 00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:09.400 I'm certainly no Tolstoy, and I just found that I could not do it. 429 00:36:09.559 --> 00:36:13.639 I didn't have the skills. That was very, very difficult, and 430 00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:15.920 so I figured it away. I figured it a work around. I've just 431 00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:22.840 left it out and I think it worked out. But that that thing defeated 432 00:36:22.920 --> 00:36:30.239 me. Another thing that's difficult to write are like party scenes, right, 433 00:36:30.599 --> 00:36:35.119 feast scenes or orgies where you have a lot of different people in the room 434 00:36:35.440 --> 00:36:38.639 and you get to figure out how to do that. They're particularly difficult to 435 00:36:38.719 --> 00:36:44.440 write. But eventually I cracked that one. There is one of the tablets 436 00:36:44.760 --> 00:36:52.000 is Disordered Is is focused on a Babylonian orgy like that, because that's part 437 00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:57.719 of this image I had in the city of that kind of sexual decadence. 438 00:36:58.239 --> 00:37:00.440 But that was a challenge to write because you're writing about sex too it, 439 00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:08.039 which can be very cringey if you don't do it right. Yeah. Yeah, 440 00:37:08.119 --> 00:37:10.719 And but again I was doing it comically, so I wasn't I wasn't 441 00:37:10.760 --> 00:37:15.079 doing it straight because the Unich is a little bit you know, that particular 442 00:37:15.159 --> 00:37:17.960 scene is told from the point of view of the eunuchs who are along the 443 00:37:19.039 --> 00:37:22.239 wall and they're watching the court feast, and then the feast descends into this 444 00:37:22.599 --> 00:37:28.079 licentious orgy, right, and so you have all these kind of sexless so 445 00:37:28.159 --> 00:37:31.280 called castrates along the wall, and they're watching it, and they're watching it 446 00:37:31.320 --> 00:37:39.280 with a jaundiced eye, and they're criticizing all the physical blemishes of the participants, 447 00:37:39.679 --> 00:37:44.000 you know, in rating the performances, you know, like like you 448 00:37:44.039 --> 00:37:46.719 do when you're watching a football game or a bad movie, right, and 449 00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:51.599 so, so I was kind of and that was actually kind of fun to 450 00:37:51.639 --> 00:37:57.280 do what an orgy you look from from the wall watchers, right, the 451 00:37:57.320 --> 00:38:00.159 eunuchs who are along the wall, who can't participate and are just watching it. 452 00:38:00.199 --> 00:38:04.480 That was kind of fun to kind of figure out that point of view. 453 00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:10.000 And it's you know, it's acidic, a little bitter, and full 454 00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:16.400 of mockery. Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, it's those scenes 455 00:38:16.440 --> 00:38:19.639 that are difficult. You know, the runt of the mill. One on 456 00:38:19.639 --> 00:38:24.800 one dialogue is not particularly challenging even for a lot of individuals, but the 457 00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:32.159 more moving parts, the more difficult it becomes. And it's almost exponential, 458 00:38:32.840 --> 00:38:37.760 to be honest with you, for anyone who hasn't tried. But well, 459 00:38:38.039 --> 00:38:42.000 we talked about a lot of things. But is there anything else that you 460 00:38:42.679 --> 00:38:45.559 really think that people should know. It's a great book. I really think 461 00:38:45.559 --> 00:38:49.239 that people should pick it up. And if you're interested in ancient history, 462 00:38:49.480 --> 00:38:54.800 like it's I mean, it's certainly the best I've ever read for ancient historical 463 00:38:54.840 --> 00:38:59.239 fiction. You know, I think that it should do quite well. But 464 00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:02.639 if if there's anything that anybody else should know, I'd love to hear it. 465 00:39:04.239 --> 00:39:08.119 Well. Uh. The Unich Uh is a love story, believe it 466 00:39:08.239 --> 00:39:14.679 or not, and much of much of the plot, much of the narrative 467 00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:22.159 focuses on the Unix relationship with nebukin Azar and Nebukanezer's lover who is the alpha 468 00:39:22.280 --> 00:39:27.360 concubine in the Harim and her name is Suduri, and so Nirgo spends a 469 00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:30.159 lot of time with that couple, and he ends up falling in love with 470 00:39:30.239 --> 00:39:36.400 satur Siduri. So much of the book is this love triangle. Uh. 471 00:39:36.480 --> 00:39:39.880 And then Siduri, well, she leads claims to fall in love with the 472 00:39:40.039 --> 00:39:47.159 Unich slay described Rgyl, and they conduct kind of an emotionally intense affair behind 473 00:39:47.159 --> 00:39:53.360 the back of the king. So that's that's part of the book as well. 474 00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:57.719 That's interesting. That's interesting. Well, it certainly brings the ancient world 475 00:39:57.760 --> 00:40:00.360 to life, so it's it's very cool. It's very cool. It's great 476 00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:04.159 that you're able to do something like that. It's quite the undertaking. I'm 477 00:40:04.159 --> 00:40:08.480 not going to ever attempt something like that myself again, but I certainly respect 478 00:40:08.760 --> 00:40:13.199 the fact that you were willing and able to do it well. As I 479 00:40:13.239 --> 00:40:15.000 mentioned that, the outset of the book is available right now. Link is 480 00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:17.920 in the show notes. And I just want to thank you again for sure 481 00:40:17.960 --> 00:40:22.519 for coming on the show. It's been fantastic, Adam, it's been a 482 00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:46.079 pleasure. Nice to meet you.