ABOUT THIS EPISODE
S8 E3: A Conversation with Eglund
Welcome to Tea, Toast & Trivia.
I’m Rebecca Budd, and I’m so glad you’re here. I look forward to sharing this moment with you.
Today’s conversation marks the beginning of a new journey for us. One that reaches across generations, languages, and lived experience. We are beginning a series titled Faust: Unravelling the Great Enigma, and I can think of no better person to open this exploration with than our guest, Eglund, joining us from Germany.
For Eglund, Faust is not simply a great literary work encountered later in life. It is part of the cultural air he grew up breathing. Like every German schoolchild, he learned Faust in school. He recited passages in class. He absorbed its presence long before he could fully grasp its depth.
But Faust did not remain a school text for him.
The copy Eglund owns today once belonged to his mother, a quiet, tangible inheritance. And it was only years later, as an adult, that he truly understood what Faust was asking of him. Not as an examination subject, not as a cultural obligation, but as a living work, one that speaks differently at different stages of life.
That, to me, is one of Faust’s great truths. This is not a work we “finish.” It is a work we return to.
In this first conversation, Eglund shares what it means to grow up with Faust, to carry it unconsciously for years, and then to meet it again, awake, questioning, and deeply aware of how urgently it speaks to our modern moment. We talk about inheritance, memory, education, and the strange way certain books wait patiently until we are ready to hear them.
This podcast is not about mastery. It is about companionship. We are entering Faust slowly, thoughtfully, and together, allowing it to ask its questions without rushing toward answers. If you are new to Faust, you are welcome here. If you have carried it quietly for years, you are welcome too.
Let us begin.
Rebecca
Music by Epidemic Sound
Whisper of the Pines by Howard Harper-Barnes
https://www.epidemicsound.com/music/tracks/8b2cd55e-c124-37a8-87a0-d1df75911e12/
