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hello everyone and welcome back to conversations with Tyler today I'm talking with Marilyn Robinson one of America's best and best known writers she is also a non-fiction essayist and now she has a new book out called reading Genesis by Marilyn Robinson which I recommend highly Marilyn welcome thank you very much why is betraying a
brother such a prominent theme in the Hebrew Bible Well I think it's sort of a small model of the offenses against ourselves as human beings that that happen at every scale and it seems in the Hebrew Bible the older brother typically does worse or is somehow dethroned or put down why is that what is that telling us I think that there's
no necessity no causality in the way that things work among human beings you know that that God is free to choose the younger brother the conventions of human society primogeniture and so on are not salient in terms of God's intentions so in your calvinist view is it elevating predestination over human institutions
and human choices I don't think I mean corl Calvin always comes up you know but I don't think that there is any Theologian whoever walk the earth who didn't say that David was chosen over his brothers because it was the intention of God you know I mean a a great deal of determinist the language is poor but God's choices are reflected
continuously in the Bible and if that seen as predestination it seems to me that that isolates it from the text in a way that's not appropriate do you think there's room in Catholic theology or or even Armenian theology for human free choice to be the reason why these different events are happening
say in Genesis or the Hebrew Bible that predestination is a bit less General than you're making it out to be in Christian thought or what what's your view pretty General in Christian thought Thomas aquinus believed in it for example wrote about it you know in Sim country dulis and also in the Suma theologia you know I mean you it's very
difficult to conceive of an omnipotent God who is relatively powerless in the way that our conception of Freedom would imply I I argue in the book consistently that God does actually restrain himself from you know intruding too far on our own nature at the same time that what he intends Works its way through our
nature you write in your book and I quote the great figures of scripture are not at all homeric unquote what did you mean by that in a homeric character well they tend to be demigods for one thing their their nature is Complicated by the influence of a Divine parent and so they're kind of you know superhuman in a
sense in the Bible there is no intention to make anyone exceed his Humanity that God is always working through people that are recognizably fallible limited human beings that part of the reason I think that we have so often God choosing almost at random among people is to to make the point he's acting through them rather than they're acting out of their
some sing singular quality of their own person so that would be true say for the elevation of Moses who at first is a sort of a stumbling bumbling figure a stutterer not very confident but God elevates Moses exactly and and Moses says you know I'm really not the person who should be doing this you know God
says well you know your brother will be your mouth Etc he does not allow the absence of what appear to be a heroic quality ities in Moses to be disqualifying of Moses how has the Book of Genesis influenced your fiction writing you know I think it has actually influenced Western literature English language literature to a point where
it's very difficult to say where the influence begins you know I think that there's nothing in ancient literature that approaches it in terms of characterization and there's very little in modern you know literature that also would approach it from that point of view you know these people who are rather obscure figures in the human
world and overlapping generations of herdsmen you know they're incredibly strongly differentiated and characterized and I think that that's something that has been a an influence on all Western literature how much do you feel that we moderns should feel free to do a kind of pick and choose from Genesis or from the
Old Testament more generally so you're right quite a bit about themes of Grace and Reconciliation in Genesis and they clearly are there say in the Joseph story but if you look at say God destroying almost the entire world through the flood or you look at some of the the battles fought in Deuteronomy it
doesn't seem to be Grace at all well you know that certainly is a problem I mean the the Bible very directly confronts the horrible aspects of human history and human behavior that's true it would be meaningless if it didn't because those things are so enormously important in human life and history the fact that it doesn't give us
an easy way to understand these things does not mean that they're not gerain to its subject you know which is the nature of human being and the nature of God the picking and choosing is certainly certainly characteristic of the response that people have made to Genesis into the Bible Al together I think that if I
could simply change emphasis and show that other ways in which things are to be understood and that there are words like Vengeance and jealousy and so on that are bad translations and and distort the reading of the text I mean I I consider the Bible to be the most complex document on the planet you know the fact that its difficulties are not
resolvable by me in every case or any case perhaps I don't think is a criticism of the Bible I once knew a calvinist his name was John Robbins and he was what I call a bite the bullet calvinist so he thought the Bible was divine revelation it was above human judgment you simply had to latch on to whatever was in there and couldn't
really very much use your interpretive faculties to to override it what's the The View that you hold that leads you to differ from from John Robbins well you know that's I mean read Calvin you know I mean every these people that call themselves Calvinists you there's no no great likelihood that they will have
read the the institutes or anything else that he wrote you know the need of interpretation taking into account what appears to be the overriding meaning of the text is what Calvin did you know I mean he's a his whole career was an explication of the Bible uh by his lights using his Latin and his Hebrew and so on he says you know we've read
this wrong for a thousand years and and it will take us a thousand years to get it anywhere near right you know so he does not believe in an absolutely straightforward reading of the text he believes very much an an interpretation that reconciles the text to the best understanding we feel we have about the
nature of God you're right in your book and again I quote to refrain to put aside power is Godlike unquote what did you mean simply that I mean the ability to assert to the extent that one can control over another person is a suspect act in itself you know the way that we have been human despite transgressions
and all the rest of it the way that that God has loved human beings in their Humanity in order to allow this to happen we have to assume that God did not assert himself in a way that disallowed our nature as a calvinist who would not in general dism miss the Old Testament what do you make of a book such as Leviticus
it's highly legalistic highly ritualistic some Christians read Leviticus and become a kind of split Christian Jew almost other Christians more or less dismiss the book how does it fit into your world view I think that when you read like Herodotus you know where he describes these little civilizations that are scattered over
his world you know he describes them as you know in terms of what they eat or prohibit or you know they paint themselves red or they shave half their head or they you know there all these kinds of very very arbitrary distinctions that people make in order to identify with one clan over against another you know at the point of
Leviticus which of course is an accumulation of of many texts over a very long time no doubt but nevertheless to think of it as being Moses he is trying to create a defined distinctive human community and by making arbitrary distinctions between people you're so that you're not simply replicating
Notions of you know what is available or feasible or whatever but actually asking them to to adopt you know prohibitions of food that's a very common kind of distinguishing thing in Herodotus and and in contemporary life so that the arbitrariness of the laws is not a called it is a way of of establishing identification of of one group as
separate from other groups so you read it as a narrative of how human communities are created but you still would take a reading of say Sermon on the Mount that the Mosaic law has been lifted or it's still in place oh it's not still in place I wouldn't I mean we've been given other means by which to you you know create
identity Moses was doing something distinctive in a certain period of the evolution of of of Israel as a people you know he didn't want them to be Egyptians he didn't want them to to subscribe to the prevailing culture which was idolatrous and you know he's doing kind of like Plato in the Republic he's saying this is this is how we
develop the idea of a community and this is what the you know of having said that then there are certain other things like Thou shalt not kill or whatever that become characterizing laws Jesus very often says you know when someone says to him how can I be saved he says you know the Commandments you know I mean it's
not as if God is a an alien figure from the point of view of Christ whom we take to be his son ritual sacrifice plays a major role in the Bible as you mention in your book including in Genesis is that a human Universal and it's still with us in some form as Renee Gerard might suggest or have we simply transcended the need for all this ritual
sacrifice I mean in the Books of Moses he has adapted ritual sacrifice so that it's clearly a a feast you know I mean that's it's a sacrificial animal of a kind that they eat customarily you know and whenever these sacrifices are called for as ritual they invite the Widow the orphan the the levite ETC these people
who are assumed to be without resources you know I think that this is true also in Homer that that they they give bones to the gods and eat the meat as a community this is probably a huge Public Health measure for one thing simply making sure that everyone within a group is is nourished you know every once in a while the idea of sacrificing the animal
I don't know I think it always depends on whether or not the animal becomes you know the Thanksgiving turkey or not I think that that varies from one group to another but among the the Israelites I think it was a feast basically the negative side of the sacrifice that you do away with something to achieve a kind of ritual
cleansing of violent impulses so they don't turn more violent that's not part of ritual sacrifice in the Bible is that element of ritual sacrif I still with us I find ourselves very puzzling frankly I mean I I don't think that we have I think that what has happened in our civilization as opposed to civilizations
that have come before is that we have the appearance of a relative absence of Violence by by historical standards and then in in reserve in potential we have a fantastic capacity for violence that would exceed anything with the world has ever seen before maybe if we had some way of releasing releasing this you know
bil Litt rather than than making more missiles and you know more bombs maybe would be healthier for us ultimately what's the role of the Antichrist in your theology it's mentioned in Daniel it's in the Book of Revelation but a lot of the Bible it's just not there well you know I tend to think there's the Antichrist is probably an array of bad
human actors and behaviors rather than being a a single figure as some people think that it is you know it seems to me that for example in the Book of Revelations what you have is this kind of cyclical pattern of history in which these Antichrist figures appear and kind of work themselves through the an epic
of history and then it goes on to another epic of history I mean it seems to me as if you don't have to look far to see things that are very very much opposed to Christ very directly whether they a knowledge this or not typically they do not acknowledge it so I don't think that Antichrist is necessarily an unusable
term well I think that it is a term that should require scrutiny on the part of people who use it certainly so for you it comes in cyclical form and it's a kind of Matrix rather than say oh singling out the pope or singling out Hitler or some person Yet to Come is that fair to say right yeah well you
know you look at history there are a lot of terrifying people in history you know it's not just Hitler for how many years did you teach literature at University of Iowa and other places Iowa about 25 years and then I did lectureships or or briefer appointments in other places how hard was it to teach literature to groups of students who I
assume very often were not familiar with the Bible how was that for you you know that's an interesting an interesting question sometimes if you ask the right question you find out that there are people in that room that know a lot more about the Bible than you would ever expect them to you know a lot of people tend to be rather private about their
upbringing perhaps you know and then you know often it turns out that they were brought up in a religious context many many people are you know there's a a really a a sad phenomenon of Christianity having become identified with what are seen as very ungenerous positions and values and so people are very reluctant to be
identified with religion because they're afraid that they're also then identified with a kind of politics that they have no respect for where in the world have the students most surprised you in this regard with what they knew about the Bible or how they understood it I think that you know there's a spontaneous
generosity in younger people you know they they admire Jesus I think this is is actually a more widespread feeling than actual adherence to Christianity or acknowledged adherence to it the impulse toward generosity I think in so far as it's celebrated in the Bible is the thing that attracts them now you've also been a preacher for many years is that
correct in church no no there was a time when the minister was often called away and I would preach and this must have happened three or four times and my whole reputation as a preacher have come from those three or four times I'm actually very anxious about being in a Pulpit I feel like an impostor and so I don't seek out that
opportunity what did you learn from those three or four times preaching that I had more to say than the 20 minutes of appr approved preaching could accommodate that's and and also perhaps that people people in churches have a kind of internal 20 minute timer and begin to notice when you're talking
longer than they would have expected do you have a view on Bible translations so it seems to me there's a new generation of translators there's a John Tabor translation of Genesis just out there's Sarah Ruden doing the gospels and the view there seems to be the earlier translations they don't sound rough enough or authentic enough they're all a
bit smoothed over what translation or trans ations do you prefer well I like the revised Standard Version but that seems to be a little bit difficult to acquire at the moment I don't know why it's just the Classic you know American Protestant Bible you know in its latest form I have problems with the later
Bible simply in the sense that they they preserve words like jealousy and so on that reflect very badly as they are understood in Modern English on God you know the Jewish publication Society doesn't use the word jealous they use the word passionate you know which sounds to me like a you know a vastly
less injurious term I mean I think that likewise Vengeance it's a very bad translation of what meant you know judgment implying that one could be Vindicated as well as as condemned you know I haven't seen these terms criticized except the with the one exception of the word jealous and I think that they are carried over because
they sound biblical you know people have been saying them since they were appropriate translations but they aren't anymore and if any but anything's going to be changed that kind of thing should be changed and you did your PhD on Shakespeare correct yes do you think Shakespeare was a Catholic no do you
think he believed in the Trinity even I wouldn't go into detail like that I the question of being Catholic or Protestant in Shakespeare's time was more a political question than a theological one I think you know the denomination in appropriate word but the the church as it were that somebody in Shakespeare's period would be reacting
against would have been the Anglican Church not the Catholic church because the Catholic church had been effectively expelled from England for a long time you know for I mean since Henry VII on the scale between you know having the king as the head of the church the Anglican model and the kind of protest
isms that were flourishing and that were publishing and that were preaching and all the rest of it popular religion of the period I think that's where Shakespeare would be found do you think his late play a Winter's taale makes sense it's often called a problem play is there a problem in the structure of the plot the setup the resolution or do
you feel you understand it I don't know I don't know if I understand it I love the late plays I love the problem you know I love the uh he becomes very very fascinated with Grace and Reconciliation in his late plays in The Winter's Tale of course it's the reconciliation between the the king and his his statue with wife the
play makes you realize what has been lost what has been harmed what has been you know at the same time that it is also a Reconciliation an an embrace you know an undoing a forgiving the the same thing is happens in symboling you know same thing happens in you know the play with Prospero in it I'm forgetting Tempest
yeah yeah Tempest yes do you think there are hints in a Winter's Tale that the queen actually was unfaithful to the king or he just completely is imagining it I think he's imagining it yes I mean you know where else you go but it's it's very like a in that regard I think that these women are to be understood as
actually you know honest virtuous people reading Shakespeare as a calvinist what do you feel that directs your attention to that say contemporary secular readers might not see Calvinism it was made to evolve Kelvin is making suggestions he's not doctrinal in the way that people seem to think but he was making really valuable suggestions and
one of them was certainly that any encounter with another human being is an encounter with God and that it is always a question and the question is always what would God want from this encounter you know in his boss in the institutes on who is my neighbor as I recall but in any case I think that's very beautiful and I think
that that sense in Shakespeare of you know of these enormously beautiful encounters where people recognize each other people pardon other people Embrace each other I think that that could certainly be something that he explored as a suggestion taken from Calvin why do you think Calvin himself has lost so
much popularity as a thinker of course feel free to challenge that premise but he has a reputation of being a nasty guy not not so thoughtful very intolerant the word is almost used as a kind of insult in some circles what's your view on that the evolution of Calvin's reputation well you know he was associated with virtually every early
revolution in Europe you know Cromwell the the French Wars of religion and so on the Dutch Revolution against Spain so I mean he he became so important in that sense that of course he was the object of poic he was you know I mean the American Revolution could be seen as another calvinist Revolution and so could the American
Civil War if you want to look at it from the point of view of the great Awakenings and so on his teachings introduced a great deal of volatility into into the existing order anywhere people defend themselves against that by you know speaking of him very harshly and also completely reversing the the implications and the consequences of of
his theology The Cure of course is to read Calvin which no one does and the reason no one does is because they think they know what they'll find you know so it's it's very self-perpetuating from that point of view when a when a negative reputation is is established there's one person who is associated with a physical
martyrdom on religious grounds Michael cidus one person and then look at any other king in Europe at that time or any Bishop in Europe at that time and so on and you'll see that as sad as it is to have martyred one man it's a very minor event by the standards of the period the addition of institutes that I own I think it's about 1100 pages
with relatively fine print if you were making a case to people why they should read it other than well you'll see what Calvin really thought how would you try to persuade them I say this is someone who you know wants to read Calvin carefully you have to read him very carefully because for some reason or
other the kind of the familiarity of theological language if you're interested in theology so much of that language comes from him but it's very easy to read superficially you know at the beginning of the institutes he says the only true knowledge of God is born of obedience which is a very important situation of this you know the
psyche the mind in calvinist terms he says if you want to encounter God descend into yourself then he says if you want to understand yourself contemplate God you know so he creates with this sense of the possibility for very direct encounter between a human being and God a whole sort of a metaphysics of what
God is and what humankind are which is again very beautiful because it's a celebration of the Brilliance of human beings all this he does in the first couple of chapters he can talk about human beings for a long time without mentioning sin or any of the things that are normally associated with him because his of this sort of Renaissance humanism
of his celebration there's also a few known or sometimes caricatured as hyper Calvinism are you a hyper calvinist I don't know any of these terms all I know is I've read his his books and I appreciate his metaphysics as I understand it which is very imperfectly the hyper Calvinists take determinism more seriously and they
think for instance that trying to convert people or preach to them is futile and we shouldn't even bother doing it because God has settled everything well you know one thing that Calvinists perhaps not hyper Calvinists have done is produced thousands of volumes of sermons obviously I mean they it was a very very literary you know
printing press oriented sort of culture even can talk about you know people who have invented some some theory that finds no confirmation in kelvin's own work he preached several times every week you know and did a great deal toward what he considered to be you know the education of people in the scripture
itself started schools and so on if somebody takes an idea and runs off with it and call thems a hyper this or hyper that has nothing to do with the material how can we tell whether we're saved or damned can't can't tell those no you can't tell about yourself you can't tell about anybody else do you worry that the
distinction between saved and Damned leads to a certain tolerance amongst religious people for highly inegalitarian outcomes so if some people are elevated to heaven and others burn in hell for reasons not related to their free choices that this then becomes also a political view that extreme inequalities are something that are
quite natural and sanctioned by God you know that extreme inequalities are something that people seem sadly inclined toward you know I mean that's what a a decaying Society always sinks into that in one form or another but Calvin never says that you can judge whether anyone is saved or damned never Because he believes that as we appear to
God you know like David and his transgressions and so on we cannot say that those are acts that have a certain value in terms of their impact on the fate of our souls his cultures the Dutch culture the you know the Protestant English language cultures the America and the colonial period and so on are
not marked by hierarchy by the standards of the period if you were to say that there was an egalitarian energy in in that period it would have been Calvinism have you been to the Netherlands at all yep yes I've been there a couple times now when you go do you feel this is a modern version of a Dutch calvinist culture or do you feel
it's an extreme Rebellion against that because if you look at some metrics say legal sex work liberal use of drugs the Netherland seems to be fairly extreme H how do you connect that or model that in your mind as an outgrowth of an earlier Dutch Calvinism well you know the Dutch Calvinism I'm aware of tends to be from
in the middle west and it is not at all like contemporary Netherlands you know what I mean sure absolutely you know it's interesting with the Netherlands I don't know I mean because I have talked with extremely audite devout people in in the Netherlands you know every the people are are so you know attract Ed by The Sensational that
we know that things happen in NE the Netherlands that are surprising but on the other hand that's gloss you know there's a lot of seriousness in anywhere it's a human tendency if I think about this country we used to have a stronger tradition of a devout liberal Christianity the Quakers William Sloan coffin Martin
Luther King it seems to me this is weaker today in relative terms much weaker than it used to be do you agree with that and if so why do you think it happened I think that it's probably fair to say that that's true there's been a loss of certain kind of confidence no question one thing we did is disaffiliate ourselves from our own
educational institutions you know I mean Harvard Gale all these were Protestant schools founded by congregationalists prant by Presbyterians and so on when they became you know major national institutions they stopped being self-identified as Protestant institutions and I think that the the loss of you know dedicated
intellectual institutions has been a sad thing for us maybe a good thing for the culture at large but you mentioned having taught including at Iowa for about 25 years surely you notice that academics are amongst the most secular people in American society why do you think that is you know I don't think we can really tell the thing about it is
that unfortunately religion has become associated with inhumane values inhumane episodes among the governing class and so on that makes people people conceal their religion or their thoughts that are of a religious character I mean when somebody calls you and who whom you would always have taken to be secular
and said would you pray for me because I'm in some kind of trouble you know you know how secular is that you know I mean people are private about religion but I don't think that that means that they're as secular as they probably as they seem to appear so you think we Americans are much more religious than it seems at
first glance yes I do think that and do you think the Midwest is still considerably more religious than say most of the coasts well again that's the kind of thing I can't really tell I mean I I spend a lot of time on the East Coast which is where I am now and I suppose that is to all appearances more secular than most parts
of the country but at the same time you know there's a flourishing church here of my denomination and so on that we don't know what we're comparing it against for one thing you know and that also there's just the fact that people can feel that they are sufficiently religious without affiliation with the
church I mean many people feel that way if we take your Iowa which presumably you know quite well when I was younger I had the impression of it as a Democratic party leaning a highly educated fairly tolerant liberal Protestant State overall with obviously a lot of diversity today it seems to be a state that say Donald Trump is going to win
quite easily electorally assuming Trump is running how did that change and why did the former philosophies held in Iowa not satisfy people well you know we're talking about something that has happened over a brief period of time you know I mean during the basically during the governorship of this Kim renolds you know I think that
trumpism is a kind of a fad you know that people you know suddenly everybody's doing the same thing using the same language and so on I'm very grieved by by the change in the political climate in Iowa because I admired its generosity and Civility and so on and I hope that this is is some weird temporary fluctuation you
know because the the kind of basic decency and Enlightenment of of Iowa was so well established over such a long time it's hard to believe that this is a permanent conversion some thinkers I think especially on the conservative right have argued that as America becomes more pluralistic ethnically and religiously
pluralistic that that on net marginalizes the influence of religion that it's easier for society to be fairly religious when there's mostly one or maybe two religions in question but when you have people from all over the world with a variety of religions or just very different understandings of Christianity there's a least common
denominator effect where most of us become more secular do you think that's true no I think that one of the things that has been a resource in this country for many years is you know religious cultures that are derived from the place of origin you know in other words the multiplicity of you know religious institutions I mean sustained religion
as a phenomenon I think that it you would say without much fear of contradiction that if you're going to find just people now you would go to Immigrant communities because they sustain many things for people who might otherwise feel that they are a drift and some commentators have suggested that the current woke
movement say from the progressive left that it's intellectually and ideologically an outgrowth of an earlier American protestantism that it has roots in a sense in the 17th century do you agree with that well I'd want to know what you mean by the word woke ism and lots of things in this country have roots in 17th century Protestant is well
say in San Francisco there is a an institution it was called a woke kindergarten and it taught American history a particular way the New York Times segments you know emphasizing 1619 a particular kind of focus on issues of race class gender trans individuals me too movement added up together as allied
with the progressive left I would take that to be one meaning of woke do you think that's an outgrowth of American protestantism no I mean having lived among American Protestants for 80 years I would not necessarily say that that is a phenomenon that is anyway especially peculiar to us in so far as any social movement wishes to
alleviate you know Injustice unhappy pointless cruelty the way so many discriminations do in so far as the point is to reduce that kind of criminal misery really I'm perfectly happy to adopt it as a Protestant say yes we did that but I think in fact it just the generous evolution of a Democratic Society what do you think of the
Benedictine option to just Retreat and tend one's own garden be highly spiritual and not engage much with the world is that a cop out or is that a legitimate way of being religious well you know it I would say it depends on circumstance I would say that when people feel that impulse it's probably because the world is in a bad
way you know they were actually withdrawing from problems that could be addressed in theory at it in case I think we're responsible for each other and my particular salvation is not as important as my honoring the sacredness of human beings in the world how did you decide to live and stay in Iowa so you were born in Idaho right you
grew up there yes what led you to prefer Iowa well you know I went to college in Rhode Island and lived in Massachusetts and so on and you know I was quite a distance from Idaho in terms of you know my experience by the time by the time I was invited to come teach in the right workshop at the University in Iowa which
is a such a a classic phenomenon in American literature you know that I was very happy to go there and be part of it how did the Iowa what you might call writer scene originally Blossom I must be 80 years ago by now there was a lot of experiment you know the at the University at that time they were they
were giving Advanced degrees for physical art you know for sculpture and for theater and so on which was very either unusual or unprecedented at the time there were already groups of people in that City who me to discuss things that they wrote the university just sort of embraced them at a certain point and
that became that became the writer's workshop and many many very distinguished writers have come through there do you think there's any kind of unique Midwest or Iowa voice and fiction the way there's arguably a Southern Voice I think not because Iowa is just I mean most of my students were from New York City or from California or you know
people come to Iowa not to be Iowans but to study at the workshop you know whereas the southern writers identify as Southern you know they they want to be expressing that particular culture so that's a very great great difference but why is it you think Iowa out competes so many other writing workshops so people
can and have set up writing workshops along the coasts in larger cities Iowa very often still seems to do better is that just history and path dependence or is there some comparative advantage still in Iowa that that makes it work it's very hard for me to say because it's the only program that I've taught in of that kind but people it's a
culture you know one of the things that I think is is a inite benefit is that they learn how to be helpful to one another the people that are students there you know they're very good critics of each other that's one of the important things that they that they seem to learn the status of the place
everybody's success is kind of feels like everyone else's success you know because of the reputation of it as a community and as far as a faculty are concerned we're we were very autonomous we simply taught as we felt was appropriate in whatever setting absolute minimum of meetings or anything like that and I think that that's part of
the you know Spirit of it also that we are you know we're trusted not regulated when your students would arrive what is it you had wished they had known but they hadn't Oh so much you know you know I mean in general well you know I can't really generalize because we do get a that diverse student body and some of
them are working with a great deal less than others in terms of of you know educational background and so on but that doesn't make them less interesting that's one of the great equalizing things about about writing is an art if you do it well you can make anything into an appropriate subject you can make anything sort of Blossom you know into
meaning do you play around with large language models at all and theyi no no no no I'm I'm just sneaking past you know I I feel very fortunate that my LIF span did not incorporate these things you know and so that they became things that I had to actually be adequate with your very first book which is called mother country it's about nuclear
pollution in Great Britain why did you write that book many people are surprised when they learn that's a book of yours yes well my first book is actually the novel housekeeping nuclear pollution came after I'm sorry okay it was my second book well I was in England and you know frankly I pick up a newspaper
and read about you know how ingesting plutonium is considered to be harmful to Children you know I mean it it was just very very remarkable the kind of information that was in the atmosphere about what was happening particularly at this one reprocessing plant on the coast of the Irish sea you know there are
Americans all over England all the time and they can read a newspaper as well as I can and they don't they don't see things it's it's you know they see violets and you know geraniums and and not the fact that things are very different there many con conceptions of what is appropriate are you know economically and so on are are
very different I could see what was happening I could find information about it in all sorts of places why should I not write about it should the British just have done more and more expensive nuclear reprocessing the way the French did didn't that work out okay for the French and France today is glad that it went
nuclear what is your source of information that a lot of European nations due to the Russian energy price shock have reconsidered nuclear those that stuck with with it such as Sweden and France seem to be glad they stuck with it and now possibly want to expand it and there's better and worse ways of doing nuclear Britain seems to have done
a worse way but aren't there better ways that some countries have done and we're we're happy they did them I don't know if I don't know I mean there's a great deal of of secrecy shall we say that surrounds these these things you know I know that France built most of its reactors a very long time ago
when just got us St was in in power reactors don't have a very long life you know 30 years 40 years they're past that it would be incredibly expensive to replace them in order to demolish them whatever you know decommission them I don't think we're going to know I mean The Prestige of any country for example Russia depends on
the kind of information we have about it and frankly you don't have to look far in many cases for example with in Russia to find that things are extremely problematic and that they are problematic as a consequence of nuclear power the idea that that somehow or other there's something that can be done with these materials that were never
meant to exist on Earth is a is a polite Fiction it's not true do you watch movies much not not a great deal do you have a favorite movie no no I like I like serializations of 19th century novels I suppose that's what I would say if I were to be perfectly honest what what other movies have I liked well I'm drawing a blank but the
sense of say God's grace that is in many of your books you might say all of your books can you think of something from television or or the cinema there when you watch it you feel someone is thinking and feeling along the same lines that you are and you think well that that's reflecting my vision of God's
grace well you know nothing comes to mind immediately but then I as I said I don't watch films very much I love the ending of The Tempest you know which is not a movie or it's a movie it's a good movie version by Julie uh is it oh Julie Tambour I think it's quite good if you haven't already seen it you would enjoy it what's the one
where the great woman actor plays Prospero is it that same one you're I think it's the same one yeah yeah that's very beautiful what is your most unusual successful work habit well I think it's becoming used to the fact that it takes me a long time to get to the place where I can work on something you know that
that all this sort of frustration and depression that precedes my writing anything is part of the process of writing before my last question I would just like to repeat to our listeners and readers Marilyn Robinson has a new book out which I enjoyed very much reading Genesis which is about of course the Book of Genesis in the Bible but I'm
very happy to recommend all of her books and of course her famous novels to you housekeeping I think being my favorite last question is simply what will you do next Exodus I look forward to that I will read it with pleasure Marilyn Robinson thank you very much thank you thanks for listening to conversations with Tyler you can
subscribe to the show on Apple podcasts Spotify or your favorite podcast app if you like this podcast please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review this helps other listeners find the show on Twitter I'm @ Tyler Cowan and the show is @ Cowen conv until next time please keep listening and [Music] learning