You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

Today my guest is Robert Bly, the author most recently of the Sibling Society.

Another book has recently come out.

It is an anthology.

The Soul is here for its own joy, sacred poems from many cultures.

The Sibling Society is in a sense the second book of major cultural criticism from

Robert Bly. The first, of course, was Iron John, and both of them were published by

Addison Wesley. Now, I noticed that it's 10 years since Iron John. Is that? No, I think not. I think it's only five years. Five years?

1991, I think it was. And is that... Has there been a cultural shift? Is the

sibling society addressing a phenomenon that comes after Iron John?

No, I think the sibling society being an adolescent society, I think we're in the fourth

generation of siblings now.

I think my generation was probably the first.

We came back after the Second World War and it was as if the war was too adult.

Many men died.

We had to get back in and do the same thing tomorrow.

After the war, we wanted something simple and easy,

so we got a lawnmower, fled the center of the city.

...