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Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Zendiburg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and welcome to Bookworm.

Today, my guest is the wonderful Jim Crusoe.

Jim is the author of five novels, a couple books of short stories. He is probably one of the two or three most prominent creative writing teachers in Los Angeles, and his new book has just come out. It's called Parsifal. Now, I immediately got worried. Do I have to know who Parsififal is and who is Parcifal?

Well, simultaneously, Michael, it's best you not know, and so I shouldn't tell you, but I will.

Okay. Okay. Parzival is, really it's an old story, and there's several versions of it.

One is the original poem, I think, is by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a German writer.

And it's about essentially, and then there's Percival and there's other ones. Essentially, the story...

Don't mix me on.

Essentially, it's about a young boy who was raised by his mother in the forest and then has to enter the world of knighthood is what it amounts to.

And of course, there's the Wagner Opera, which was important to me when I wrote it.

But if I'm not mistaken in the legends of Arthur, Parcival's father is Lancelot.

Really?

Yeah.

Huh.

Is his mother Guinevere?

No.

...