Gilgamesh x Matilda

Matt and Shana Russell delve into the unlikely pairing of Gilgamesh and Roald Dahl's Matilda. 

Shana Russell is a professor at Bard High School Early College, Newark where she teaches Seminar, literature, and electives in anything from Afrofuturism to the Literature of Newark. 

Transcript

Matt 
University, Mr. Wormwood shouted, bouncing up in his chair. Who wants to go to university for heaven's sake? All they learn is bad habits.

Welcome to the Bard Sequence Seminar Podcast. Today, it's Gilgamesh and Matilda. 

I'm Matt Park, Director of the Bard Sequence. Today, I'll be your friendly moderator and panelist, and I'm joined once again by Shana Russell. Shana, can you say hi and briefly reintroduce yourself?

Shana 
Hello again, everyone. I am Shana Russell. I teach 10th grade world literature and seminar and literary electives at BHSEC Newark. I'm also a literary scholar and a historian and a storyteller.

Matt 
Awesome, thanks, Shana. This whole podcast really came from you and from your suggestion at the end of our previous Gilgamesh podcast, which is that Matilda by Roald Dahl might be paired with Gilgamesh. Just to get us started here, I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit about Matilda, why you chose it, and what relationship you have with that text.

Shana 
Sure, so Matilda is the story of a little girl with magic powers, right? But the idea is that she is an incredibly curious and really intellectual and sort of hungry to learn young child in a community of adults who would rather be right than sort of be curious in the way that she is, including her parents and her principal.

and she finds solace at school with her teacher, Miss Honey. And so in that sense, it becomes this kind of, sort of like a coming of age text, right? I loved it as a kid, not because I had mean anti -intellectual parents. My parents are voracious readers, but I grew up in the South. So as a kid who really liked to read and was sort of a child with a very, very open mind in a place, in like a community where that wasn't true, for a lot of the adults around me. I just found a lot of affirmation in Matilda as a character. 

She was the kind of literary, fictional character that makes it okay to be the young kid who likes to read in a community where people would prefer not to unless it's the Bible. So yeah, that's why I like it. But I also think that, if I thought about Matilda, I had returned to it as my young adult pleasure reading while I happened to be teaching Gilgamesh, but I thought about those two characters together because they're both a coming of age process and a way of people learning to use their powers, in a self -interested way at first. And then it kind of grows into something else, right? So they're not perfect, neither one of them are perfect in the way that they use their abilities and they grow into a level of like wisdom and maturity in that way. So I like the, I love a complex hero.

Matt
I have to say I did not have a relationship with Matilda before prepping for this podcast. I had not read it. I had not seen any of the films or stage productions. I really, I'd heard of it, but honestly, reading this was a lot of fun. So I am glad that you suggested it. I was an avid reader at some point in my life and especially when I was younger and then middle school hit.

And like many middle school boys, I was lured away by the glare of the screen, both television and video games. 

Shana 
Hmm.

Matt
And so there's kind of a lull in my life in between the period when I was a big reader, when I got seduced by video games, and then later on when I rediscovered reading. So for me, when I was really young, I think Matilda would have struck a chord. And then I think, when I was a little bit older in middle school and such, I think it probably would not have. And I would have found it to be quite obnoxious and I would have gone right back to my video games. But reading it as an adult for the first time, I have to say I did enjoy it. 

Parts of it perhaps have not aged so well and maybe we can talk about some of those parts. Roald Dahl is Roald Dahl, and in addition to being an inspiring children's author, he is also known for a number of other things, which he should be fairly held to account for. But we're not gonna get into him really so much today. I think we're gonna keep it pretty squarely on Matilda and on the text. But I am really glad that you suggested it. I did enjoy reading it and I do see how it can marry fairly nicely with a discussion of Gilgamesh.

Shana 
That all makes perfect sense. I would also like to say that middle school is right about the time where they stop advertising reading as fun. So that's the other problem, right? Like in elementary school, the whole thing about reading is this is so exciting. And then by the time you hit middle school, it's serious and you have to do it a lot and it's not fun anymore. So I don't blame you for being lured by the screen, which is fun.

Matt
I think it's gotten a little bit better perhaps with the glut of YA novels. 


Shana 
Mmm, mm -hmm.

Matt
And I'm going through that right now with my oldest child who is 12, will be 13 in July. And he is where I am, except for him it's sports and soccer. And if it's not sports or soccer related, it is so uncool. But he will read a dystopian YA novel. And I think those kinds of things perhaps are more widely available now than when I was growing up. 

Shana
Yeah

Matt
There is a few lines in Matilda where she kind of walks past some YA books, which I think she describes as like teen romances

Shana 
Yeah.

Matt
and she's like, no, this isn't for me. I'm going straight for Hemingway or some such thing. So I think the quality of children's literature has perhaps gotten better.

Shana
Absolutely.

Matt 
And the dystopian story of I'm the hero in the dystopia, I think speaks to middle school age children a bit more. 

Shana 
For sure.

Matt
So maybe I would have kept reading a little bit more, but I think also there were a lot of other things going on in my middle school years that no one wants to hear about on this podcast and I'm sure not going to talk about. So that's that. 

Shana
Fair enough.

Matt
But it was great reading it as an adult.

Shana
I did find it more satisfying as an adult than I think I did as a kid.

Matt 
So let's jump into the first category. I'm calling this "the reader of books," which is a chapter in Matilda. And so both Gilgamesh and Matilda make strong cases for storytelling as well as literacy being fundamental to an elevated life. So let's start with storytelling. Shana, what is storytelling to you and why do we do it? Why are humans compelled to tell stories?

Shana 
I think about storytelling as testimony. That's always the first word that comes to mind. I think it's how we understand who we are fundamentally, both as individuals and then how we relate to other people. So collective identity is also told through storytelling. I also just think it's more interesting than history, even though history is a form of storytelling and story making and myth making, but I feel like there's something about a well told story that excites people. I also think we find it very comfortable. I think the ability to know where a story is going, where we are in the story, how it works. I think there's always an entry point for someone in that sense. So yeah, I think it's like, right, it's world making. It's how we make sense of everything. 

Even now, there are far more people who are watching Marvel,
which is also a form of storytelling about how the world works and what it means, then there are reading astronomers or encyclopedias, or history texts. So I also think it's sort of like, if you need the most people to think about something at once, then you've gotta put it in the form of a story in order for it to reach that far. So it certainly reaches a lot farther than any other kind of information giving.

Matt 
As a historian, I do have to agree. And I've always been a historian who's been more interested in the storytelling aspect of history than I have the kinds of histories which I was often given and told were important growing up. Perhaps too much at times for the committee, for my grad school committee, for my dissertation, who felt I was too interested in some of these stories and needed to get to the historical truth of things a bit more, but let me not rehash those arguments. I take storytelling to be a basic compulsion just to impart meaning and to create community. I think that we are social beings and that we have certain needs that are met when we listen to or tell stories. And these needs can be emotional, educational, or intellectual.

And I think what happens when you tell a story is you create community, that there's a relationship forged between tellers and listeners. And we do different things when we create this community. One of the things we do is we pass on things that we think are worth preserving. It could be morals, meanings, wisdom, knowledge. But we can also do a number of other things too, and we can also retell and invent stories. 

And, I think it's also a bit of an outlet for certain kinds of people in society who maybe are not so good at certain things, but are what we could call intellectuals and who really want to tell stories. And people that society otherwise might not know what to do with. This gives society a way to say to that person, okay, you're our storyteller. You're able to touch people's hearts and minds, go on and spin your yarns. We'll celebrate you at least to a certain degree until we tire of you. And so I think there's a number of things happening there. Another thing I think that happens with storytelling, and I think you alluded to this when you talked about the pleasure you got rereading something from your youth, which is Matilda, which is I think storytelling allows us to kind of reconnect with our inner child a bit.

I think everyone has this or has some kind of inner child that we often don't acknowledge or nurture very much. And we often don't give that inner child much because we need to be professionals and serious people and so on and so forth. And I think storytelling lets us go back and find that inner child and say, I see you, you're still in there. You still like these stories. And, for me, one of the things that helped me to kind of recognize that is when I had my own kids and I started reading to them the stories that my parents read to me when I grew up. And I was reminded of how much I enjoyed those stories, right? And for different people, it's different stories and, you know, it's going to be culturally specific and specific to time and place. 

But I think there is something about this idea of, I read these stories when I was a kid and now next generation, I'm gonna share them with you as well. I think there is something magical about that and of reconnecting with your inner child through story telling.

Shana 
It is actually also my approach to teaching Seminar because of the way it's structured. I also lean into the parts of the story that I like, the salacious parts of the story or the love triangle in the story or how, you know, characters' attitudes towards other characters. Like the cool thing about Seminar is that I also get to feed that part of myself as well and just enjoy being a reader and a thinker along with students. It's also why I like teaching Year One seminar because that's when you get all the fun ancient drama stories.

Matt 
I do, I again, I mean, I said this in the last pod, I do love Gilgamesh so much. And whenever a student doesn't love Gilgamesh, I just want to jump in there and be like, you haven't been told the story right. You got to think about it this way. Anyway, okay. So in both Matilda and Gilgamesh, there is the importance of stories. There's Gilgamesh and all his deeds being copied down on the stone tablet and again, passed down through thousands of years.

There's the whole story of their rediscovery and translation and retranslation and performance in the 19th and 20th centuries. But there is also this other thing, and especially in Matilda, which is an aversion to stories, something that we often refer to as anti -intellectualism. 

And so we see a lot of that in Matilda. And the quote that I read at the top of the podcast here from Matilda's father, where he talks about university as a place where only bad habits are learned. And we can look at other characters in Matilda like Trunchbull and so on. And there is some also deep aversion to storytelling. And in particular in Matilda, there is the television, which in the text is a dreadful thing. It's a monstrosity. It's deadening the mind and the spirit of Matilda's parents and brother, and they're forcing her to sit in front of their telly. And it really seems to be an enemy to literature, which again, from my experience, I can kind of understand because of the way in which an obsession with different screens led me away from literature. So I do get what Dahl is doing in portraying the television as the enemy of literature, as the enemy of intellectual thought. 

Again, I will say now that I have my own kids, I do limit their screen time. We have some pretty strict limits in terms of what screens they can be on and for how long. We did finally have to break down and get my eldest child a smartphone, but we don't let them have social media. So there are all kinds of ways in which we try to limit those things and try to get him reading books.

So in Matilda, again, I think the television really serves as this really powerful force of anti -intellectualism. I also think that's probably because of the kinds of programs that they're watching, which are primarily geared towards entertainment and advertising. And so, I think I've watched a lot of great movies and even some great television. And I think some of those things have actually helped my intellectual development.

But on the balance, it's hard, at least for me, to make the argument that television is a beneficial influence in society. That it is enlightening and that it's much other than just kind of capitalism and advertisement and distraction and entertainment. Do you agree or do you have a bit of a more nuanced take on television and on media?

Shana 
I do have a really, I'm of two minds about this. I have a tough time. I'm always very nervous whenever our knee -jerk reaction is to sort of criticize television, in part because, and it's a class distinction, right? So for some folks, that is their primary source of information. So the ability to kind of be intellectual and take time to just think and kind of ponder things is, like also a privilege. 

Getting a PhD meant that like I essentially made money by going and hiding in a library and getting to read all these books and like really, really think about the world. And it just so happens that I was studying the world that my parents grew up in. And so my dad said to me at some point, like, we didn't have time to think about it, right? Like we, the fact that we, that I'm grateful that you're getting to think about it one generation later, but we didn't get to.

And so I think about that, and it assumes that whenever someone, regardless of age, is consuming any kind of media that they're doing it uncritically or unaware. And I don't think that that's always the case either. And then of course there's the way that television and social media fill in all kinds of gaps that intellectual pursuits leave out.

So for that reason, I'm always very quick to wanna stand up for TV and media and social media as sort of a way that a lot of communities that are underrepresented in other kinds of thinking and meaning making, think and make meaning. So there's that on the one hand. I agree with you, however, in what it is that Matilda's family is consuming.

So I do think it's more of a critique of the hold that capitalism has and like advertising and entertainment that is for the sole purpose of making money, that should make us all nervous and is really scary. And of course, like I don't have children, but as a parent, you can't filter that. You can't filter your child's media consumption by intention of creator. Is this to make money? Is this to push, you know, propaganda? And a lot of times it is.

And so, so I think it, but I think it's more the how instead of the what. So the issue of course is that Matilda has far more information about what lies behind what's on television. She has a moral compass and a conscience that's different than what her parents have. So they're watching this material uncritically and just sort of receiving it and repeating it. And she has like a set of information that they don't have, which also means a critical lens through which she can look at it, that they're A, not able to see, but they have this power over her that doesn't allow her to sort of have her voice be heard in that way. So I do think the message of not listening to the person whose job it is to sort of know more than everyone else is the tough part. 

And so at the time, I will say at the time, the first time that I read Matilda, and living in, I grew up in a military town, so this is a lot of very passionate repeats of this very stock narrative about patriotism and about America. And so I did get a lot of pushback as a kid for being critical of that in general, just on its face, like, well, let's ask questions about it, which you're not supposed to do. And not feeling like I had a sort of voice to do anything about it. I found that, her, to be very affirming to me in that sense where I'm like, I feel like I live in the Twilight Zone because all I'm getting is myth making with no critical thinking, these repeating of phrases that feel like TV slogans and I'm having a hard time. I think it's more complicated than that. And so in that sense, I think I felt very satisfied by that. So I do think receiving those messages and repeating them without question and then using that as a way of having power over other people by just being louder is something that's worth criticizing and something that television has the power to do really well.

Matt 
I certainly agree that it's the uncritical aspect of it. And again, there are plenty of films that I've seen that have blown my mind and in ways that books have as well. But when I think television, I often think of the kind of 30 minute sitcom

Shana 
Yeah.

Matt
 in which it comes on and in 30 minutes there's a problem, it's resolved, the world is set right again and you get a few commercial breaks in between to sell whatever, and it's very easy to just kind of passively watch that. It certainly does not usually invite you to investigate too much, right? You sit there, you're entertained, there's a problem, but it's fixed, and then you leave, you know, more or less feeling happy, and it's easy. You don't even have to get up from your couch, and in 30 minutes everything is done, and books are difficult. They take a lot longer to read, and that in and of itself requires  more sustained effort of a person. 

You have to sit there and even a short book like Matilda, if you're reading it with any kind of closeness or depth, you have to sit there and you have to read it for some time.  You're not going to finish it anytime soon. And you're going to have to put in sustained effort, multiple readings, or you're going to have to read for quite a long time.

And to me, the difficulty of books and of the medium of reading, I think, is a bit more challenging. And again, like while you can read books uncritically,  at the very least reading requires to me more concerted mental energy and output than passively allowing the television to show you things in a short period.

Shana 
But they also both use the same mechanism for telling stories, which is in a way very easy. So I've been talking to my students about the hero's journey, which is like the same thing that you're watching in a Marvel movie or a television show. There's something that sets off whatever's happening in the episode. There's some sort of trial that the main character has to go through. Then we're going to resolve it and tie it up.

But I think what you said about television also brings up the question of whether or not there's anything wrong with escapism. I don't know where I fall in that, but I do think that literature and other forms of storytelling and media, including television, are centered in this escape from the real world, but can also be a mirror for society or not and what the role of that is and whether, I think we tend to be overly critical of people who do things for escapist reasons. And maybe we should rethink that.

Matt 
I love escapist media. I'll just go ahead and say that. I love escapism. I'm very much drawn to the fantastical, to escapist forms of both film and fiction. So I will come down and say I very much enjoy escapism and escapist media. But again, it just, to me, there is still something there. There is still something there, just about the differences between reading and watching. I think it does activate different parts of the brain. I think there are different processes involved. And generally speaking, one helps us to build a bit more of a work ethic, a bit more of capacity, and the other to me doesn't as much, or it doesn't certainly require it. 

Shana 
That's true, that is true. And that's across, I think that's anything you read. Whether you read a graphic novel or an epic poem, it is the same amount of discipline and interpretation and critical eye that, you're absolutely right, that television just doesn't lend itself to that process at all.

Matt
And so the final part of this prompt is what if anything this can help us with in terms of anti -intellectualism in our society today. And I'm thinking particularly about the way in which certain people in society are vilified, particularly teachers, educators, artists, scientists, poets, historians, but also sometimes experts in general.

The argument has been made that we do live in a particularly anti-intellectual time. Maybe that's true. Maybe that is using a somewhat rosy view of the past and anti-intellectualism has never been far from society, particularly from American society. But one of the things I did want to think about is anti-intellectualism and the mindset of people like Matilda's parents who vehemently do not want to know.

They do not want to ask difficult questions. They don't want to hear difficult answers and anyone who's asking those questions or providing those answers is an elitist. They're those university people that Mr. Wormwood is talking about, full of bad habits, troublemakers, and rabble rousers. And I do think that that is one of the hallmarks of anti-intellectualism is just the desire to not see things change. That anti-intellectuals do not like asking difficult questions or hearing difficult answers because they really don't want to see things change. They are comfortable with whatever things are, no matter how good or bad they are, and what they really are afraid of is fundamentally change.

How do you see anti -intellectualism today in America? And what, if anything, does either Matilda or Gilgamesh tell you about?

Shana 
So I agree that we live in a sort of moment of anti -intellectualism in part because anyone can name themselves an expert, right, because of social media, and that, that is not a new phenomenon. I think it's kind of always been that way. I also, but I think for the average person, right, like I think those in power have certainly considered, or use that anti -intellectualism, bled into society, so that they could keep lying. Because the people who choose to sort of tell the truth have been like, are a threat to a particular way of life. Which is absolutely true for Matilda's parents. Her dad's a dirty used car salesman. And so honesty is a threat to his way of life where he's become very comfortable. That's an issue of capitalism, right, but like, I think he's smart enough to know that. But it's about the stories we tell ourselves. So there's that, not only are people resistant to change, but they're resistant to change themselves and challenge what they believe. 

But part of the issue with that for me is that we feel compelled to, anytime we talk about anything that makes people uncomfortable, I think we have this compulsion to give things a sort of value judgment. That by just talking about a certain thing, that means that we have to call that thing good or bad, right or wrong. And you and I both know as trained historians that that's actually what we are taught not to do. That a historical thing is what it is. And we have to start with that. And then we can figure out what its impact is and what that impact means. It's actually the first thing I tell my students whenever we talk about difficult things, that we're just, it happened, it is what it is, and that's okay. We do not have to feel any sort of way, it doesn't have to challenge our fundamental values or ethics or anything. We just have to talk about the fact that a thing happened and to be honest about it, which is in fact what experts do. They take information and analyze that information and assess that information for what it is and for what's there.

And what they get accused of, of course, is like making things up or doing way more than what's actually happening. What experts do is really tedious and boring. They're not interesting. I know that they sound like we sound like supervillains teachers or like historians or scientists, but a lot of it is boring. And we're just telling you what we found out from whatever information we have.

Matt
Man, speak for yourself, Shana.

Shana
I wish that I was as interesting as the media would like for me to be as a teacher with a plan to warp the minds of children. We're just trying to get them to read. 

Matt
No, you're right. I am terribly boring. You're absolutely right. I just don't want to admit it on the podcast. Like, I don't want to go on the podcast and say I'm boring, so I'm going to pretend like I'm not.

Shana 
Oh, I know for a fact that the things that I find absolute glee in, other people would not want to do, like go in a basement and look at archives for hours and hours and hours. Anyway, but back to the original question about anti -intellectualism, is I think it's the value judgment part that really gets us in trouble. And that if we could get to a place where we could have a conversation, an honest conversation about how things are, how the world actually is, without feeling like, A, that was a judgment on ourselves as individuals or on human beings as a whole, then we would be improved for that. So in that sense, Miss Honey, I think, is actually the best ammo against anti -intellectualism because she lives this very simple, humble life. She believes in being responsible with information but also with an intellect. She is teaching Matilda to be kind, and once Matilda has this listening ear for someone to just listen to her thoughts, her magical powers go away. She doesn't need them anymore. 

So I think there is a lot there that like intellectuals and experts and storytellers have a responsibility to be both rigorous in what it is that they do, but also to be kind and to be responsible and to be sort of people -minded in that information, right? Because we're also not, we're capable of doing harm with information as well. So I think in that sense, like, Miss Honey has a lot to teach us. And so does Gilgamesh's mother, actually. This is the person who has, I love the combination of, like, both intellect, information, wisdom, and nurture that happens in both of these texts.

Maybe it's just because I relate to that as a person who is both a scholar and a teacher. That what I do with that information and how it impacts students, my methods of doing that is just as important to me as being honest and being open and being curious and wanting to sort of get down to the bottom of things. Does that answer the question? This is just what came to my mind.

Matt
Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. And we'll get to Gilgamesh's mom in a second. That's the next category. But I do agree with Miss Honey in terms of her being both a person who lives simply, but also someone who does seek and teach truth. And I do think that is the balance, because you can find people who are terribly well educated, but are not necessarily interested in truth and in fact are interested in quite the opposite. And so Honey is not necessarily that. She is educated certainly. She's a teacher. She's qualified, but she's not necessarily brilliant. What she is is honest and down to earth and interested in truth. And the simple life, again, I think, one of the things that that shows is you don't need to be a university professor to be an intellectual. You don't need to be a genius to have a share of the truth. But you do need, like you said, to be interested in telling the truth about the world as it is. And anyone can do that. 

But the flip side is just because you are a simple down to earth person does not mean that you are interested in the truth either. There are plenty of people who will come up to you and tell you how down to earth they are and I'm just the average Joe, but that does not mean that they are interested in truth just because they are of ordinary, you know, whatever. And that they are, I'm not an elite, therefore I have a unique hold on the truth. Well, that's not necessarily true either, right? And so it's somewhere in between the arrogant expert and the populists who thinks that because they're common, they have the unique hold on the truth. It has to be somewhere in the middle where we ask these questions and seek difficult answers. 

There is one thing though I do want to say is that you described the father as a dirty used car salesman and the title of the chapter is Great used car salesman. Great. So I did want to point that out.

Shana
That's fair.

Matt
just because, you know, there's been a certain discourse about greatness lately in this country that one might say is connected to anti-intellectualism. And some of the people who talk about making this country really, really great are not necessarily the ones looking for truth. So just wanted to throw that out there, the chapter does call him a great used car salesman.

Shana
And I suppose by the measure, now it's great versus honest. And those things do not always have to go together. Like what is your measure, right? Is he, I guess he's, well capitalism says if you're winning and better than everyone else, then you are great.

Matt
So much winning.

Shana 
Right, so much winning.

Matt
So much winning that we're tired of all the winning. Okay. All right. Next category, mothers and fathers. There's some really interesting parenting and some in loco parentis in these texts. And so what is your take on parents and parental figures in the texts and how they square with your own thoughts on parent child relationships and what those are like?

For those who don't know, in loco parentis was a kind of common law term, which meant in the place of the parents. And so schools and teachers were often granted in loco parentis, meaning the parents aren't here, therefore the school or teacher is empowered to act in place of the parents. So just for anyone who's listening and just heard that term for the first time. Shana, what do you think? Parents, kids, what's going on?

Shana
I actually like all of the parent child relationships in both texts, both like chosen and given, I guess. Partly because I like how much agency young people have, and this is like assuming of course like that at a certain point Gilgamesh was younger. Obviously his mother is wiser and far more experienced and has a different expertise than he has. But I think there's a lot of place for both main characters to chart their own path, make mistakes, think for themselves, depart from parental wisdom or not. And so that I think is such an important, it's an important context in part, right? 

Sometimes I think we overstate the sort of influence of parents to the level that we suggest that children do not know themselves and are not in fact putting together pieces of the world for themselves. And so I love the agency that both characters have to tell their own stories and represent themselves in a particular way. And the ability for storytelling to provide, somewhat realistic, somewhat unrealistic context within which they can do that. I like that, I actually like that for Matilda it comes from both parents. And so we're not like perpetuating right, any kind of bad gender stereotypes in that sense. It is equal opportunity bad parenting for poor Matilda. 

I also like the fact that she gets to use her powers to sort of get back at them and that's how it starts. I've found that very satisfying. Although again, my parents are wonderful. This is not me. I love them. The reason why I love reading so much comes from both of my parents. But I think the idea of being able to get back at adults is so satisfying for a child to read and also empowering and important. And maybe I'm saying that because I'm not a parent, but I just think that's an important way for, like it's a safe way for kids to sort of have that satisfaction of rebelling against adults through fantasy as opposed to reality maybe. 

And yeah, and then in the case of Gilgamesh, as much as that is a text about masculinity, I love the fact that all of the wisdom comes from women. It's one of my favorite things about the narrative actually, so that the intellectual is really his mother. And I just think that says a lot about, sort of historically, right, we always tell ourselves this narrative about women being oppressed since the beginning of time, blah, blah, blah.

Which is true, in a lot of ways. However, nuance looks at history. Fiction tells us a lot about where cultures are as it relates. And so obviously somewhere Gilgamesh is considered like the oldest kind of piece of written literature ever. I think there are obviously some arguments for and against that, but either way, as old and complete as it is for what we have now, thousands of years later, I think it says a lot about like it gives us this moment in time where wisdom was a very sort of, could be considered a kind of matriarchal realm. And so I think the gender representations as it relates to being an intellectual, and both Matilda actually, through Miss Honey, and in Gilgamesh is what I really think about. Those are my kind of favorite aspects of it.

Matt
I clearly have more anxiety about this than you do, I think. And I don't know, I don't think it's just because I have three kids. I think it also was evident, I think, in my style as a teacher. I always worried as a teacher whether or not I was helping my students in ways that they needed to be helped, or just generally, I always worried if I was a good teacher. And so,
I similarly worry or have worried, you know, whether I am being a good parent, whether I am helping my children or when I was in the classroom, whether I was helping my students in ways that they found to be meaningful or if I was just lecturing on lessons that I've learned from my life, which they will not actually find useful because their lives are or will be so very different.

I do worry, I'm, you know, the wisdom that I have imparted to young people, whether in the classroom or to my own biological kids, whether that is in fact useful to them. I am probably too Freudian in this regard. I probably worry too much. I mean, I think that's probably where it comes from. Not to be too intellectual about it, but I do think, or maybe it is my Catholic guilt or it's something, it's from somewhere. But I definitely do have those anxieties. And maybe you're right, maybe I am assuming too little of my kids or of the students and their own ability, regardless of me, to do well and to flourish.

And maybe it won't matter too much in the end, whether students were in my classroom or not, or whether I did a good job on this or that lesson or unit or not. And maybe my kids will be and do what they do regardless of my parenting style, so long as it's within certain bounds. I don't know.

Shana
I share your anxiety about whether or not I'm a good teacher. And I mean whether or not I'm an impactful teacher. Like if I'm just perpetuating this like information they feel like they won't need later or that kind of thing. But I also feel like, and this might be my own, I think that as a kid I felt like I wasn't allowed to be an expert in my own life at all, or my feelings, or who I was as a person and I was really frustrated by that. And so I think that's why I take the side of the kids because my inner child is still upset about it. I also talk to my therapist about this. Right, like that's my sort of therapy hill to get over is just not feeling heard and not feeling like I could be an expert on my own life.

And I do think that our students are experts on their own lives and that I learn a lot by them teaching me about themselves. Even though I also know as a person who has been a teenager and isn't a teenager anymore that that will change a lot. They will feel differently about lots of things. They will feel very silly about some things. They might even feel guilty about certain things as an adult. But allowing young people to think it through, whether or not, like it helps us a lot to know how they're thinking through it and how they think about themselves and who they are and that makes it easier for me to figure out the best way to like teach and communicate, you know, it's an exchange. And so, just like I think the relationship between Matilda and Miss Honey is an exchange, I think the relationship between Gilgamesh and his mother is an exchange. Even though one party is much significantly wiser and smarter and more experienced than the other one.

I still think that they were allowed to represent themselves and I find that part to be really important.

Matt
Yeah, I mean, there's a huge gap between, you know, Trunchbull and Ninsun, right? And I think we can all agree it is not okay to be Trunchbull. 

Shana 
No.

Matt
You can't yeet the children. You can't hammer toss them. You can't have an Iron Maiden in your classroom and stuff like that in there.

Shana
She chose the wrong career. Would have made a great wrestler. We have to know our limits. Because I have even more anxiety maybe than you do about, like, I recognize that I do not have children by choice. Because the idea of having it be in my hands about whether or not a little human is a good person terrifies me. And so I chose the path of not parenting and being the village, which I love, and being a teacher, which I also love. So like she should have chosen a different career path. A wrestler would have been a great idea.

Matt
Yeah, I'm going to bring this up in the next. We'll talk more Trunchbull, I think, in perhaps a future category. Do you want to do it now? 

Shana
Sure, why not. 

Matt
All right, let's talk Trunchbull. Here's my thing about Trunchbull. If there were a Netflix show today, it would be called Trunchbull.

Shana
Yes.


Matt
And we would learn all about her backstory. And we would find out why Trunchbull is the way Trunchbull is, and it would probably lend a certain kind of revisionism in which we find out in her youth, people treated her in a certain way and that's why she is the way she is. She talks about the perfect school as having no children and hanging flypaper, right, so that it catches the kids and we've got them. Now they can't move, they can't speak. And she forces, what's his name, Bog Bottom or something to eat cake until he pukes. And, you know, she uses corporal punishment, which thankfully, I think is, you on the huge decline in society in general.

But she also is, however, portrayed in a lot of ways that are troubling, particularly in the way in which Dahl treats her as a kind of masculine woman. And we are expected to infer certain negative things automatically from the fact that she is masculine and a woman. She's called a giant at one point. She's essentially described very similarly to the way that Gilgamesh talks about Humbaba. It talks about her fearsome voice in a very similar way, her giant stature. She's basically almost called an ogre. She's called a gorgon at one point. She's called a stormtrooper. She's described as having a bull neck.

And again, like these are all descriptions that you would 100 % find in Gilgamesh when talking about an ogre. And here they all are being used to describe Trunchbull. And so it is hard in one sense to have any sympathy for her because of the awful way she treats these kids and the way she sees them. But on the other hand, Dahl's descriptions of her are so terrible, in terms of things that have nothing to do with the way that she treats kids and just in the way that she looks, that it opens the door for a certain kind of sympathy. Am I wrong here? Is this sympathy for the devil? What are we, what is Trunchbull to you?

Shana
Well, so my issue with Trunchbull, and this might just be the literary scholar in me, right, is the dichotomy between Trunchbull and Miss Honey. They're like two levels of, it's two extremes. So I think you're, I agree with you that her quote unquote lack of femininity is connected to the fact that she is also not a nice person. Versus Miss Honey is like very meek. So while she is smart and nurturing and gentle and everything that Matilda needs, there's a lot to the fact that she is the opposite of Ms. Trunchbull. And her history is sort of, because Ms. Trunchbull is her aunt, right? So they also have a shared background that's not great, which is interesting. And one results in this sort of very quiet, almost like mouse -like character who is very smart but also very introverted and quiet and gentle. And then this other character who is just like a big, almost nonhuman bully. So I feel like when you put the two characters together it gets worse. 

Like we have a much better, kind of diversity of characters in Gilgamesh and of representations of women that don't lend themselves to these kinds of dichotomies. So it's the dichotomy between those two tropes. And then you have Matilda's mother who, and they get exaggerated in all the films and the stage adaptations, by the way. And that's the other thing that's very troubling is the actor who plays Miss Trunchbull. She's got this huge wart on her face and it's a lot. Anyway.

I also think that it becomes a kind of unfortunate representation for what role schools play in, back to our previous conversation, I'm like, oh man, it's not a great representation of public schools at all, even though it is very British. So sometimes I'm like, oh, that's very British. That's not us. But there's also that, that in order for her to be in that sort of leadership position, Trunchbull kind of has to be very sort of manlike, right? Like Miss Honey can't be the principal because of what kind of woman she is, quote unquote. And so those are the things that make it really troubling. But she's such a good villain though. So while we should definitely approach these characters critically, I just am delighted at how thorough and like pure a villain she is.

Matt 
Are you saying that Crunchem Hall is not a great school? 

Shana 
You're right, like, not a great idea.

Matt
I love that name. I just love Crunchem Hall as a... 

Shana
Totally. It's so satisfying.

Matt
It just sums up the philosophy of education in that school under Trunchbull so well. 

Shana
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Matt
Kids? Crunch em! 

All right, third category. Quote from Gilgamesh. He will face a battle he knows not. He will ride a road he knows not.

What do both texts suggest about life's journey and about growing up? Can stories about others who have taken the journey before us help us along our way? We could view both of these as coming of age stories. I will say for my part, the one thing I really find interesting when reading these two together, I'm not gonna talk too much about Gilgamesh, because we did a lot of that in the previous episode, but what's really interesting for me, is that in Matilda, it's the world that has to change for Matilda. Whereas in Gilgamesh, he goes out on his journey and he becomes wise through getting beaten up and defeated. And he loses his best friend, he tries to gain immortality, he's thwarted in that. 

And he does achieve certainly some victories in life. He certainly does you know, defeat Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven and whatever you think of those things. Whether you think those are positive achievements or not, they certainly are achievements. But at the end, he is humbled. And in Matilda, I do think we have somewhat of a different story here in which Matilda is brilliant and everyone else has to kind of figure that out and get out of her way. And so to me, Matilda doesn't change too much throughout the course of the novel, although at some point she does decide to start taking revenge out on her parents. But other than that, I think she remains Matilda and she's just gonna be brilliant and read and do her thing. And everyone else has to ultimately recognize that and move aside so she can shine. So to me, I think that's more of a kind of, well, I mean, we would call it postmodern, but I don't wanna get into too much what that is and start parsing that term. But it is a more contemporary style of storytelling in which, you know, society needs to change to accommodate the individual as opposed to the individual running up against the realities of objective life on planet Earth and being humbled and then coming to a different kind of wisdom. Do you read that differently than me? Or do you also agree that it's, they're kind of different ways of thinking about life's journey?

Shana
I do read it a teeny bit differently, only because if Matilda were a predictable novel, at the end she hones her powers even more and they become stronger. And yet in the text they become weaker because she feels listened to. And so I think while as satisfying as it is, especially as a young person reading this text that she can like troll adults, some of the things that she does aren't nice. Right? Like she, you know permanently glues her poor father's toupee to his head and Trunchbull is like drinking a fish or is it a fish? I think that she borrows from her friends.

Matt
I think so, I think so. I might be wrong though.

Shana 
And so it's also kind of like, I know that you feel not listened to, but like these are extreme levels of, these are extreme behaviors that you're taking revenge on all of these folks. And so in that sense, I think both Matilda and Gilgamesh start off both stories trying to wield their power and take it as far as it can go for the sake of it in a lot of ways.

And it's lovely that Matilda gets to do things because she can. It's slightly more obnoxious in Gilgamesh's case, because he had everything and then he just wanted to go out and do more. But I do think that they're both doing that very young person coming of age thing where they're doing whatever they want for their own sake and not thinking outside of themselves. But then you get to a place where it's like a with great power comes great responsibility sort of narrative. And so, Gilgamesh gets really humbled by realizing he wants his sort of abilities to be even more than what they are. And he has to learn to be okay with having just enough. 

And the same thing, right, with Matilda. In some senses, she does need that level of defense because she is not the strongest person in the world. But also, like, she doesn't need to kind of, because what's the difference between defeating Humbaba and defeating Trunchbull with your powers? Which was also, she doesn't necessarily need to, when she's not in danger, suddenly her powers diminish and she can just be the person who likes to read without sort having to feel like she has to compete with other folks. And so it's an argument for being safe, or emotionally safe in that sense.

I mean, the same for Gilgamesh, right? But emotional safety for him is more like being okay with what's going on in his own world and sort of being satisfied with what he has versus with Matilda, it's being able to get to that place where she can be in her own world and then live there peacefully. So yeah, I do agree that there's a lot of differences, but I do think the way that they're kind of clumsily using their abilities or pushing them as far as they can go, but having to pull back at some point, I think that part's actually important in the way that they relate.

Matt 
Yeah, I think it matters how you read the ending of Gilgamesh quite a bit. At the end, he's talking to its Urshanabi, the boatman, and showing him the city of Uruk. And he gives the same kind of monologue that opens the text. Look at the city. Isn't it great? These are the walls and so on. I tend to read that as him being defeated, that life's road and life's journey has defeated him in quite a number of ways. And so I don't see him as really having his heart in that speech. And I think there's a great deal for me of loss and sadness, I think, inherent in that speech that he gives. Now, perhaps that is something that I am reading into the text, which others might not.

But in Matilda, you know, it ends with her jumping into Miss Honey's arms and her parents driving off and saying, fine, go live with Miss Honey. You don't, you know, you'll never have to deal with us again. And so Gilgamesh, not Gilgamesh, oh my God. Matilda Mesh,  so Matilda, AKA Matilda Mesh gets the mom she's always wanted in Miss Honey. Trunchbull is gone and her parents are off, and so she is triumphant, you know, in my mind. And it doesn't seem like she's going to miss any of those figures. It doesn't seem like she's going to miss her parents. She's going to live, you know, happily and cared for with Miss Honey. And so I think in the end, she emerges as victorious. And perhaps you're right, a victorious troll, but Victorious nonetheless, right? So her trolling pays off in the end.

Shana
I think from a narrative perspective, it had to happen that way though, right? Like, Matilda is losing at life in the beginning. Like, it's not going great. And Gilgamesh is winning at life and unsatisfied. And Matilda's like, winning, or losing at life and unheard. And so, in order back to like, what storytelling does for us emotionally, we needed both of those endings to happen the way that they did in order to feel like, satisfied.

So I feel like in that sense it's just great storytelling in both parts.

Matt
That's fair. It is a reversal in each case. That does make sense to me. 

Okay. Moving on. So one of the things I noticed as I was reading Matilda, which made me reflect back on Gilgamesh, was just the sheer number of insults that Roald Dahl peppers throughout the book, which made me think back to Gilgamesh and there are quite a few insults there as well.

And so I thought it would be fun to talk about some of these insults, who did it the best, and in particular to think about the idea of an insult comic. So I am officially naming this after Groucho Marx, who is one of my favorite insult comics. And I hope this will cause anyone who is young and listening to this to Google Groucho Marx and find some of that old stuff.

So I'm gonna call this the Groucho Marx Award for Best Insult Comic. Shana, do you like insult comics? Do you have a favorite one or do you not particularly care for mean comedy?

Shana
Yeah, I think I might not care for me in comedy. It might just be me.

Matt
I actually don't like it too much either, which is why I chose Groucho Marx, because he's mean, but he's not really, like, he's not foul, I guess.

Shana 
Yeah, it's so much, if it's campy then I'm in.

Matt
Okay. Yeah, I think a lot of insult comedy can get pretty foul and like pretty out of line sometimes.

Shana 
Yeah. But as long as it's like, if we're talking earlier than 1960, I think we're great. I do love the insults going back and forth between Ethel and Fred and I love Lucy.

Matt
Okay. Okay. So maybe if we get some dueling insults here, we can do the Ethel and Fred Award. 

Shana 
I also do think Groucho Marx is hilarious.

Matt
Oh, that was the best. I did find, I was going through the kind of internet version of research for Groucho Marx, and I did find two of the following quotes, which I did find relevant here. So one is, "I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." So I thought that fit into this podcast. And the other one is, "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

Shana 
Hehehehehe

Matt 
So anyway, those are really, anyway, I like those. All right, so let's go through some of the insults here. These are some of the ones that I clock Turnbull using. They're not all, like, I missed a bunch, I'm sure. I did not get every insult she uses in this book, but she calls the kids, especially in this book, gangster, little brute, black head, foul carbuncle, poisonous pustule, criminal mafioso, thief, crook, pirate, rustler, brigand, clot, blister, piece of filth, walking germ factory, little fool, ignorant little slug, witless weed, empty -headed hamster, stupid glob of glue, poisonous little pockmark, unhatched shrimp, disgusting insects, filthy little maggot, and useless bunch of midgets, festering gumboil, suppurating little blister, and those are just some of them.

I definitely missed some them in that list there.

Shana 
It's the adjectives. I think it's the use of adjectives that I really, really like and that makes these so great.

Matt 
Oh, 100%. And I will say the alliteration. I really like, I like witless weed. That's a good one. I think my favorite is fleabitten fungus. So I like that one as well. So then I went back to Gilgamesh. I said, okay, let's look for some of the insults in Gilgamesh. I've kind of paraphrased them, but we have, in Enkidu insulting Shamhat, after all she did for him. He basically says, you'll never have a house or a family, you'll never have things of beauty, you will defile the ground you walk on, you'll sleep on a bench, you'll sit at crossroads and sleep in ruins, the thorns will cut you, men will hit you, your house will collapse and be a roost for owls. 

And then we have Gilgamesh to Ishtar, again, who didn't do much other than hit on him and make a pass at him. He calls her a door that can't stop the breeze, a palace that kills its own soldiers, a tool that hurts the one who uses it, a shoe that bites the foot. And then he goes on to describe, of course, how she cursed and murdered all of her lovers. 

And then finally, we have Humbaba insulting Enkidu when they show up in the Cedar Forest. He calls him the spawn of a fish who knew no father, a hatchling of a terrapin and a turtle who sucked no mother's milk. "In your youth I watched you, but near you I went not. Would your (line missing) have filled my belly?" So he insults Enkidu in a number of ways, you know, spawn of a fish, you know, your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries and all that kind of stuff. It's very, very Monty Python-esque.

What works for you? What's the best insulting that we get, whether Gilgamesh or Matilda?

Shana 
So I think if I'm going, if I'm trying to defeat the school bully, I'm bringing Trunchbull for sure. But if I'm going to a comedy show, I'm picking Humbaba. Like I think that Humbaba would have fantastic self -deprecating like stand -up comedy. Like if he were to turn the fact that he was defeated by Gilgamesh into a one person, one creature show, it would be hilarious and I would pay to see it.

So I think Humbaba comes out on top for me as the one who has the best potential to make a career in comedy.

Matt
So I said the same thing. And so in my mind, once I decided that, I started hearing Humbaba as Rodney Dangerfield. 

Shana 
I can see that.

Matt
Right? It's like, you know, I'm here in the Cedar forest and I get no respect. The gods put me here to guard the forest. And then these guys, they come in, no respect for me. You know, it just to me, there's a certain Rodney Dangerfield-esque kind of quality to Humbaba.

Shana
I can see that.

Matt
and in the way in which he just kind of, I mean, he's just so taken aback that these guys even stepped into his forest in the first place. He's just kind of perplexed and he just starts riffing and just kind of, you know, throwing one liners at him, at them in a kind of calm and controlled manner in the way that like Dangerfield used to do that. So to me, he's kind of that kind of comic.

Shana
I feel like the other thing is he's hurling these insults to save himself. Right, like the other things are just mean. What Gilgamesh does to Ishar is mean. What Enkidu says to Shamhat is just mean. Trunchbull is just mean. Humbaba's trying to save his life here.

Because he knows he's getting ready to lose, so he's really throwing spaghetti at the wall. Because then the very next thing he does, of course, is promise Gilgamesh to the world if he just doesn't totally slay him. So I also might just be biased towards Humbaba because where his jokes come from is just a better place. I put him as a Richard Pryor.

Matt
Okay, okay, I can see that. Yeah, I mean, his insults were clearly better. He did not account for how many winds they brought, right? It's like, oh my God, these guys got the whirlwind too? Forget it, I'm done. Please spare me. Right, what is it, like seven wins or something?

Shana
I forget.

Matt
I can't even. Yeah, they're all enumerated in the text. Read the text. But anyway, all right, well, we'll certify Humbaba as the best insult comic of either book.

Shana 
I concur.

Matt
All right, and we've got one final category here. We're going to call it Switching Places. So moving one character from Gilgamesh to Matilda and vice versa, who is moving and what happens in each story, and moving one passage from one text to the other. Same thing, what passage would you like to move and why?

Shana 
So I'm definitely moving Trunchbull to Gilgamesh in place of Humbaba, partly because I would love to see, speaking of like a Freudian concept, how Gilgamesh would shore up to someone who does have a kind of like elder sort of motherly way, in a weird way, but who's just as insulting and like menacing as Humbaba is.

So I just feel like from like a storytelling perspective, psychologically, you could do a ton of stuff with that. Because I also think that like, Trunchbull is a super villain. So if she needed to play, because the way she was pretending in front of all those people's parents too, right? Like she was pretending to be this like very nurturing sort of serious principal. They had no idea that she was terrorizing all of their kids, because the whole thing was, well, if I told our parents, they wouldn't believe me.

So I can't imagine the kind of psychological games she'd be able to play with Gilgamesh in the middle of this battle. And I just think that would be really fun to see. The other way around, I think I'm putting Enkidu into Matilda's class. So second grade Enkidu being Matilda's bestie. I think that would be the best idea, right? Because then she would have someone to go along with all of her hijinks, because she really was kind of doing all this by herself.

But Enkidu is like a great second, like second man. So I think that like having a companion to sort of encourage and like back up all of these things would be hilarious. Like she had her, she did have her one like friend, but she wasn't really helping. She was just sort of keeping secrets as opposed to having like a sidekick. Like if Enkido is Matilda's sidekick, that would be amazing.

Matt
One of the reasons I really like that is because Enkidu did not get a childhood. I mean, the poor guy was created, presumably, as a full -grown human to be a challenge to Gilgamesh, right? And so he didn't even get to grow up. He didn't get to experience childhood. He's just a full -grown, huge man plopped down in the middle of the wilderness so that one day he will eventually challenge Gilgamesh physically and go through all the things he goes through. So, I think that would be nice to give Enkidu a childhood and allow him to attend school and, you know, maybe choose his own path in life instead of being created specifically to wrestle with this king in this city somewhere. Might be nice for him.

Shana 
That would be nice.

Matt Park 
I'm switching Matilda and Ishtar, which I think would be a lot of fun. And in my mind, like after Gilgamesh insults Matilda, I think she plays it really cool at first. Like she doesn't summon the bull of heaven. She's like, mm -hmm, okay, yeah, uh -huh, all right, all right, okay, Gilgamesh. And then in the middle of the night, she just like shaves his head and his beard. And, which I'm pretty, I think that was like a huge insult and to do that to a king would have been a pretty big deal. So I think Gilgamesh wakes up with no beard and is mocked out of the city because the king had his head shaved by a little girl. I think that would be a lot of fun.

Shana
That's true. Ishtar missed a lot of opportunity there in terms of ego. Like I think bruising Gilgamesh's ego would have been far worse than any sort of physical defeat or any kind of heavenly, otherworldly things you could throw at him.

Matt
Yeah, and I think, I mean, right, she tried to challenge him with the physicality of the Bull of Heaven instead of going where he's actually not that strong, right, which is his kind of psychological or mental state. That's the other thing I think Matilda could possibly do, which is use some of her mind powers. And we know that Gilgamesh was really troubled by his dreams and he had trouble interpreting them. So I wonder if the other thing Matilda couldn't do is give him some kind of really like wacky dreams that would mess with his head. So I think that would be fun. On the flip side, I really want to know what Ishtar would turn Mr. Wormwood into and some of the other really annoying adults in Matilda. Like, I mean, obviously, like, she would go on a murderous rampage. 

Shana
Yes. 

Matt
100%. Like, she would kill a lot of people. But for the people she didn't kill, it's a question of, like, what would she turn them into? Would she turn Mr. Wormwood into a used car and pour something, you know, pour some sugar in the tank or something? That's kind of where I'm at with that.

Shana 
She could also turn all of his customers against him.

Matt 
Mmm. Mm -hmm. Go after his work and income.

Shana 
Considering how, exactly, because considering how like Ishtar, like the goddess was so beloved and had tons of followers, like imagine if she had all of those people who loved her just turn against his business.

Matt
Oh yeah, no, she's taking over that town immediately. She's becoming the new ruler of the town. 

Shana 
Yeah, school's getting leveled.

Matt
The temple in her honor, like the temple in her honor goes up like a week later.

Shana
Yeah, I feel like if you're gonna put her in there, you gotta do the whole thing.

Matt 
All right, did you do anything moving a passage from one to another?

Shana 
Passages were tough for me. I couldn't really, they didn't feel like they belonged, one in the other place. Although concepts do, so I would love for the metaphorical dreams that show up in Gilgamesh to be moved somewhere in Matilda. Like it'd be really cool. I would love to know what's going on in Matilda's mind when she sleeps. And having those be interpreted by like Miss Honey or someone, like that would be great.

And then having a Miss Honey figure somewhere in Gilgamesh. Because what we don't have, all the women that we have are like seers or love priestesses or like what, we need like a regular everyday, you know, nice, kind, gentle person in there.

So I did think about that. But I did think the one thing that came to mind when you asked about passages was if dreaming as a concept was somewhere in Matilda and dream interpretation. So any of those dream interpretation, symbolic things, I think that would have been fun.

Matt 
Yeah, I mean, I think that would help introduce the idea that Matilda has powers a little bit better too, because they do kind of come out of nowhere. 

Shana
Yes. 

And again, like reading this as an adult and not expecting that and not knowing anything about Matilda, I was like, wait, wait, wait, hold on. This girl's got psychic powers all of a sudden? Like, what happened here? This is not the narrative I thought I was getting. I did not expect the psychic powers, right? And she could kind of, you could foreshadow that a bit, maybe with some dreams. That makes sense.

Shana
And it happens like more than halfway through the text, right?

Matt
Oh yeah.

Shana
Because the level to which she despises her parents and they in turn despise her is quite comprehensive and described in great detail.

Matt
Definitely. I also agree with Miss Honey in terms of like no one in Gilgamesh just like, all right, we're just going to sit some to make some tea and, you know, we're going to we're going to sit and chill and talk. Let's just talk. Let's talk about the past. Let's reminisce. There's no time for that.

Shana 
Imagine how different Gilgamesh's life would be if he could have just talked about his feelings, because he was clearly having big feelings. And he just needed some tea and like a scone, and he needed to talk about how he was just feeling incomplete and dissatisfied with his life. A little self -reflection.

Matt 
And if anyone in that society had time to sit down and drink some tea and chat, it's the king, right? Like he does not have to labor for his daily bread. He's got all the time in the day to have a nice, nice hot beverage and just talk things out. And he's got people around him. He's got Ninusn, you know, I mean, come on. The guy could have done a little bit more introspection, I feel like.

Shana 
I think he was just bored.

Matt
So let's rassle. Let's get down to it. Let's just rassle

Shana
Yeah, why not? Here's an idea. That is actually the hardest, not the hardest part, but you know students always ask questions about why narrative places, things are in the narrative and why. And I never have any answer for the like, now why is he going to fight Humbaba? Because he wants to. If you go, like that's his reasoning, I'm gonna go because I want to. And I want to defeat him and I want everyone to know, or I want to defeat him and I want everyone to know who I am.

Matt
See, that part I do understand because I have three male children. And I see that on a daily basis. And it is like, I'm bored, let me now physically attack someone in the household. And it's often me, but not always me. But there is very much a like, I'm bored, what can I do? I don't know, let's beat the crap out of dad. And now there's enough of them where they really can succeed and they're getting big enough where it's getting harder and harder for me to just stave off their attacks essentially. So I get it, I get it.

Shana 
Yes, and I'm like, I'm bored. I'm gonna go read a book and then I'm gonna be very upset when someone comes to interrupt me doing that.

Matt
Yeah, no, I just get elbow drops and drop kicks.

Shana
Huh, all right. I mean, I'm sure it's good to get that energy out.

Matt
Yeah, no, definitely. But that's also why we have friends.

Shana 
And then, yeah. They're also not risking the downfall of society by doing so. So there's that too.

Matt 
No. No, they're just risking a bruise to my ego, which already is in tatters because, you know, my nine -year -old and my 12 -year -old are just pounding me into dust. 

Anyway, all right. So... It's terrible. Getting old is a... whatever. Anyway. So I didn't move one passage directly from one text to another. But what I did was I rewrote the opening of Gilgamesh as if I were Mr. Wormwood. 

Shana 
Heheheheh

Matt
So when Gilgamesh is really trying to sell the city, I was like, this is kind of like Mr. Wormwood trying to sell a used car. Like this city's got plenty of problems. It's not as great as Gilgamesh is talking about. And historically, this city would have smelled really bad and been full of crap, quite honestly, right? And so I thought of it in terms of like Gilgamesh talking up the city and how amazing the walls are and what is the greatest city on earth. I thought of that in a similar way to Mr. Wormwood selling his used cars, which he also very well knows have lots of problems. So this is Mr. Wormwood trying to sell the city of Uruk. And I tried to use the lines from Gilgamesh as best as I can.

So you can tell me how well this went here. So, all right.

See its curves reflect the strands of sunlight. 
View its chassis that none could copy. 
Take the drive to a bygone era. 
Draw near to the big city home of many goddesses. 
Are they not searching for their king? 
Climb into the driver's seat. Shift into gear. 
Survey the leather seating. Examine the display. 
Can you feel the petrol fired in the engine? 
Did the seven sages not recommend premium unleaded?

So that is my Wormwood Gilgamesh fusion, selling a used car, like selling Uruk. That's what I got. That's about what I was able to come up with.

Shana 
Now I'm just thinking about Gilgamesh selling a car. No, I think it makes sense, right? Because the issue, of course, with the city of Uruk is that it is beautifully built, so the infrastructure is sort of the thing, right? Because Gilgamesh built it with his own hands and all that kind of stuff, but the engine's not so great. The sort of civilization itself is not doing well under his leadership. So I actually think it makes a lot of sense that he would be like, listen, it smells good, the leather feels nice, the wind in your hair, like don't look under the hoods, fine, don't do that.

Matt
Well, and I think like many cities, it's got the downtown area with all of the really nice infrastructure. And it's just kind of like, just look at the downtown. Just look at the downtown. Don't look where the people live. Look at the downtown. The temple's really big. Look at the walls. The bricks were fired in an oven. It's really, really great

Shana
And don't listen to what any of the people are saying, it's all lies. So of course, thank goodness Mr. Wormwood doesn't have Yelp or Google reviews, right? Because they'd be bad. And so he'd have to say, don't listen to any of that. So that would be the other thing. Because if you did, then all of the people of Uruk would be saying that their king is kind of terrorizing them a bit.

Matt
All right, Shana, that's it. We did it. 

Shana 
Cool.

Matt
Thank you very much. It was a pleasure having you back on the podcast. Again, I'm really glad that you suggested something which was outside of the box, which is Matilda. I enjoyed reading it as an adult and obviously I really enjoyed talking to you today. So thank you.

Shana
Thanks for fulfilling my fantasy of putting these two texts in conversation in a scholarly way. I really appreciate it. It was a lot of fun.

Matt 
Thanks, Shana.