Brandywine Books

PW: Brandywinebooks.net

2006-06-24T17:00:00.000-04:00

It's late in the day, and dawn has come.

I've decided to abandon Blogger and Blogspot for my own web space, URL, and a new blogging software. Thanks to Bill Roberts of Out of the Bloo and Thinklings for the cool, but still in alpha version, software with which Lars and I will be blogging at Brandywinebooks.net. I'm not sure if using an alpha version software is especially risky, but it feels good so far. Maybe we should back-up the posts regularly.

I haven't added all the links to the blog rolls yet, and I'll still have to make blog directory changes, let the ecosystem know where to find us, call the state department, etc. There are plenty of old posts to repost (I guess), but I don't plan blog here again. Please change your blogrolls, if you link here, and let us know what you think of the new blog. It should be more useful all around. Have a good weekend! - phil

lw: Don't be sour, be a sower

2006-06-23T20:06:00.000-04:00

I performed prodigies today. I took a second pass through the Mystery shelves, coming at the missing accession numbers from a different angle. I checked each book against its database record. I found that in many cases two different books have been given the same accession number. So I assigned new numbers and cleared those. I also found that in a number of instances the computer and the list thought we had only one copy, but there were in fact two copies. Again I assigned new numbers and cleared the books.

My pile of corrected books now boasts considerably more copies than the Mystery shelves do. In fact the Mystery shelves are now down to one shelf and change. I took some satisfaction in a job well done.

But only some.

Because in my world, Walker’s private Gehenna, successes last about one second. Once they’re in the past they’re dead history, inert and impotent as an old Drew Pearson column.

But the books I still can’t clear—ah, those books are important. Those books Matter. They glower at me from their shelves, a silent indictment of my failures as a librarian, as a man, and as a vertebrate.

That was how I was raised, you see. It never mattered what I’d done. What mattered was the imperfections, small and hard to find though they might be. They were always located, and always punished. (If you’re wondering how that relates to my statement the other day that my dad was patient—well, the problem wasn’t Dad.)

So that’s how I think. I could never do one of those really vital jobs, like being a policeman or a fireman or a doctor, because a mistake that meant a life lost would absolutely destroy me.

It’s a bad attitude for a Christian.

Jesus said:

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop, a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:3-9, NIV)

An important lesson of this story, one I think is often overlooked, is the optimism of the sower. One presumes that the sower knows his work, has done this before, and knows that three-quarters of his seed is going to be wasted.

And yet he scatters the seed anyway, confident that the one-fourth that finds good soil will yield enough to make it all worthwhile.

That’s faith raised to the level of heroism.

Lars Walker

PW:Red, The Color of the Dawn

2006-06-23T18:06:00.000-04:00

Laurie Bertrand, the designer of the stealthy Teensy Ninjas, has a beautiful photo of red books on her blog, Liquid Paper. I'd like to take photos like this, but I'm sure I can't. No, no--it's beyond me.

But red is the color of the dawn, you know, and there's a new dawn coming to Brandywine Books. I hope to tell you about it tomorrow. - phil

PW:Box of Interviews

2006-06-23T08:14:00.000-04:00

Ella of Box of Books is on vacation, and she's lined up several interviews with lit-bloggers to have posted while she's away. She explains her idea here. Fourteen days of good interviews with people you may be reading online and offline, even me later on. - phil

lw: Hard-boiled librarian

2006-06-22T20:30:00.000-04:00

Today I did detective work. Not the vital, sometimes dangerous kind done by policemen, but the sort of detective work librarians do, which is about all the excitement I need, thank you.

When I took over as Autocrat of the Stacks, the staff was at work on a barcoding project, affixing little sticky labels with barcodes and numbers to the covers of the books, with an eye to a future date when we’ll be able to do check-out and check-in electronically. The barcode numbers are the books’ accession numbers. They're recorded by hand in the books themselves and in a series of looseleaf binders, and also in our cataloging database.

As might be expected, there were glitches. I have a couple shelves in the workroom devoted to books for which no proper barcode label can be found.

My job, when I choose to give it time, is to figure out what went wrong with those books. I find it stimulating work, offering the challenge of a mystery without the complications of physical danger or icky human contact.

The most common problem seems to be that of transposing numbers. Somebody sees the number 1845, and his brain registers 1854. That creates an obvious problem when the real 1854 comes up, so that book ends up on my Mystery Shelves.

Another popular mistake arises from propinquity. The library asssistant reaches for 1845, but, somehow, his hand lights on 1846 without his noticing it.

Sometimes there’s been a problem in recording the numbers. The number in the book may not match the number in the computer. The original accessioning librarian may have written the book in on the wrong line in the binder, or accidentally assigned the same number to two books.

All these common mistakes give me routes I can follow to identify the problems and restore decency and order to my realm. I was able to fix the problems on about a third of the books I went through today, and that’s a good batting average.

But there remain the Universal Mysteries, the books whose barcoding problems admit of no rational solution. Sometimes as we go through our inventory we discover those books, and their errors are incomprehensible. A label for 20422 placed on a book numbered 17365? Why? How did this happen?

Without suggesting any kind of equivalence, I believe this is the same kind of thing real detectives face. There are some crimes that make no sense and can’t be reasoned out, cold cases that have to be filed away, leaving only heartburn behind. Sherlock Holmes never solved the Jack the Ripper murders. Not only because Holmes was only a fictional character, but also because the Ripper murders weren’t solvable by pure reason. Some human actions result from the intersection of plain evil and pure chance. Reason need not apply.

As a Christian I agree in large part with the rational view of the pure scientist. Like him, I believe that the universe is essentially logical (though I believe it for a different reason).

But God made things messy when he introduced into the experiment beings not wholly rational. People don’t always act sensibly, or even for their own benefit. Fear injects variables, as does principle. The world gets messy, and lots of questions are left unanswered.

I guess that’s one reason I like to read mysteries. I like seeing reason triumphant, loose ends tied up.

It’s not quite like real life, but if I want real life I can hunt down barcodes.

Lars Walker

lw: Some things are as lovely as a tree

2006-06-21T19:54:00.000-04:00

I actually had another spot of good luck yesterday, which I neglected to mention.

As Lord and Master here at Blithering Heights, I’ve been concerned, since the snow melted, about my tree cover. Specifically the single large tree in my front yard (I think it’s probably an ash, but I’m not much good with trees. My only other tree is a big fir [or something] in back). The front yard tree drops a lot of small, dry branches, and it didn’t leaf out very well this spring. On top of that, it has a sort of soggy spot on the trunk, where it appears a branch was lopped off long ago.

So I called an arborist last week. His wife answered the phone, took my number, and said he’d get back to me. A diagnostic visit would cost $65. He never called me back.

Yesterday I called another arborist. He listened to my story and told me he could come out and do some tests ($50), but his recommendation was that I should call my City Forester, who’d look at it for free. The downside of that approach would be that if the Forester condemned the tree, there’d be no appeal. But he didn’t think I had a terminal problem, judging from what I’d told him. He also suggested pounding in some tree food spikes, available at any hardware store.

So I picked up some spikes tonight, and I’ll be installing them later this evening. If that doesn’t help, I’ll call the Forester.

I selected this arborist because, although his ad didn’t feature any telltale fish symbols or anything, his choice of business name suggested he was a Christian. He certainly does business as we like to think Christians do (and are too often disappointed).

Maybe civilization isn’t coming to an end right away after all.

Lars Walker

PW:The Macavity Awards

2006-06-20T21:37:00.000-04:00

Sand Storm has a list of nominees for the Macavity Awards from Mystery Readers International.

PW:Ups and Downs of Book Club Sales

2006-06-20T21:28:00.000-04:00

Tess Gerritsen, who was recently nominated for an award from Mystery Readers International, blogs about book clubs in this post from last Friday. She says book clubs can launch your career:

It’s what happened to me, back in 1996, when my very first hardcover, HARVEST, was a Literary Guild Main Selection. Back then, I was unknown to booksellers, just a former paperback romance author. But when the Literary Guild chooses your novel as a Main Selection, the publishing world takes notice. Suddenly, you’re not just another new hardcover author; you’re the writer of that month’s Big Book.

So, what’s the down side to being a book club pick? Well, there is the possibility that it may dent your sales in the brick-and-mortar stores, because so many readers are receiving your book in the mail instead. And book club sales aren’t applied to any bestseller lists. A million book club readers may have chosen to receive your book, but it won’t get you on the New York Times list.

Still, the real secret to building a bestselling career is word of mouth. And when hundreds of thousands of book club members are reading your book and talking about it, you can bet that will boost your sales in bookstores as well.

lw: The Uncanny, by Andrew Klavan

2006-06-20T19:51:00.000-04:00

This seems to be my lucky day, in terms of shopping.

I needed a new briefcase for work. The latch broke on my old one. So naturally I made a detour on the way home to my vendor of choice, the local thrift store.

They didn’t have anything remotely like what I needed, unfortunately. But they did have one of those fold-up bookcases that were in vogue a few years back. Since I already have several of those in my basement office, and I needed more, I figured I’d pick it up. $14.95 isn’t a bad price.

When I got to the check-out, the lady rang it up for $11.94. I looked at the tag quizzically, and she said, “Twenty-five percent off on Tuesdays.”

Sometimes lucky is as good as smart.

So I proceeded to the office supply store to buy a briefcase, retail. I intended to get a vinyl one. But hello! The leather ones were on sale at the same price as vinyl. So I’m spiffy in leather now.

I should have gone shopping for something else, just to keep the streak going. But I figured I’d saved all the money I could afford tonight.

Any more good luck might have made me cheerful, and we can’t have that.

Yesterday I panned Andrew Klavan’s The Animal Hour. Today I shall soften the blow to his ego (since I’m sure he follows this blog) by praising his horror novel, The Uncanny.

I kept thinking as I read The Uncanny, “This book is almost perfect. I wish I’d written it.”

I’d like to see it done as a movie, but only if they respected the text. Obsequiously. Because this book is like a fine Swiss watch, all its parts rotating and ratcheting together, making a small, regular “tick-tick” sound (which, by the way, is a recurring theme in the book).

The book begins with a short story called “Black Annie,” a note-perfect pastiche of a Gothic horror tale. The reader then discovers that it is being read aloud by Richard Storm, a Hollywood producer who has made a pile of money with a series of horror flicks, but has moved to England due to a personal setback.

He reads it at a London party, and when he finishes it a woman drops a glass. That brings about Storm’s first sight of Sophia Endering, a lovely, lonely, emotionally damaged heiress and art-gallery owner, with whom he falls immediately in love.

But Sophia has other things on her mind. A man spoke to her one night in the street, imploring her to watch to see who will buy a certain obscure painting at an auction. The man who buys it, he says, is the devil. He can’t do it himself, he says, because he’s going to be murdered. Which prediction comes true.

And Sophia is deeply troubled, because her own father has instructed her to buy the painting for him. “At any price.”

Richard is advised in his assault on Sophia’s defenses by Harper Albright, the proprietress of a magazine devoted to supernatural phenomena. Harper is an interesting character, a resolute skeptic whose life is centered on a kind of affirmation of faith.

As he gets embroiled in Sophia’s perils, Richard finds that his own dreams—even his movies—seem to be entwined with the diabolical plot he uncovers, bit by bit. Other old stories, a ballad, and a memoir punctuate the story, and it all comes together in a climax worthy of Hollywood (as Richard can’t help noticing).

It’s a thriller and it’s a parable (a Christian book, I think, though there are no Christian characters). Women will enjoy the love story; guys will enjoy the adventure and thrills. I loved it.

Lars Walker

PW:Only Dull Art Has Merit

2006-06-20T12:54:00.000-04:00

London Museum rejects an artist's laughing head sculpture for its exhibition but accepts the stand made to support it. "The plinth and hastily carved wooden support were, according to an official statement, 'thought to have merit.'" - phil

PW:Say It Again, In English

2006-06-20T12:27:00.000-04:00

The Literary Saloon points out the oddities of an announcement in the Chinese press of a book which was written in English but published first in Chinese. I hope the Chinese readers make it through the "transitional period of hardships." I may be in one of them myself. - phil

lw: The Animal Hour by Andrew Klavan

2006-06-19T20:27:00.000-04:00

Had three stops on my way home tonight. Bookstore, grocery store and drugstore.

In the (second-hand) bookstore, the owner had apparently noticed that I’d started buying more books lately, after being kind of scarce for a while. I told him I’d bought a house and cancelled my cable, and so had considerably more time for reading.

“We cancelled our cable about six years ago,” he said. “But then we got it hooked up again so we could get a discount on cable internet access.

“But we don’t have it plugged in.”

I’ve been gushing over the books of Andrew Klavan recently (found one I hadn’t read in the store tonight—hurrah!). However, I feel obligated to warn you about one of them.

I finished The Animal Hour the other day (I won’t link to it). It’s one of Klavan’s earlier books, and I get the impression it was a kind of an experiment.

In my opinion, the experiment didn’t succeed.

It starts out with a great hook. A young woman in New York City goes in to her job and starts to settle down at her desk, when another woman comes into her office and asks her what she’s doing there. The conversation becomes a confrontation, and soon a number of employees have gathered. It quickly becomes clear that no one there has ever seen her before.

That’s a terrific start. Unfortunately, at least to my taste, the rest of the book doesn’t live up to it.

The mechanics of a great thriller are all there. Suspense mounts, and mysteries abound.

The problem is with an element that’s usually Klavan’s strong suit—the characters. There were very few characters in this book who raised my sympathy much. Most of them were creepy in one or several ways.

Also the gore level was high.

Also Christianity didn’t come off looking very good.

I’d skip this one.

Lars Walker

PW:Interesting, Not Informative, Sales

2006-06-19T13:04:00.000-04:00

Brent Sampson reports on Amazon's sales ranking provides "marginal sales data at best." Through field testing, he determined that the top 10,000 books are ranked hourly according to how they sold compared to each other, and then "a trending calculation is applied to arrive at a computerized sales trajectory. So, hypothetically, a book that held a ranking of 2,000 at 2pm and 3,000 at 3pm, might hold a 4,000 ranking at 4pm, even if it actually sold MORE books between 3-4 than it did between 2-3."

So, Wodehouse's The Mating Season may have sold one or two, jumping in rank from ~53,800 yesterday to ~22,500 today, whereas Joy in the Morning hasn't sold anything, dropping from ~37,300 to ~65,800? Is that about it? Does this scuttle my idea to send one book's rank skyrocketing by getting a few people together to buy a total of 25 copies within the same hour?
[seen on Return o'the Reluctant]

- phil

PW:Are Art Awards Worth Anything?

2006-06-19T08:43:00.000-04:00

Terry Teachout asks: "Has there ever been a prize in the arts that was worth having? Is it possible for any institution to give an award for artistic achievement that has real significance?"

As a reader, viewer, or listener, I think of awards as knowledgeable recommendations and resume enhancements for the artists. - phil

PW:Overloaded Market

2006-06-17T22:16:00.000-04:00

In a lengthy post on the problems with submitting fiction, Finn Harvor describes an email sent to journalist Laura Miller which received this reply in part:

Books, especially fiction, are unfortunately something that many, many people want to write and relatively few people want to read, at least not in commensurate amounts. (See last year’s NEA survey, “Reading at Risk.") People tend to point their finger at the part of the process where the book they’ve written has gotten stuck. If it doesn’t make it to the agent, it’s the agents’ fault; if it doesn’t make it to a publisher, it’s the publishers’ fault; if it doesn’t get reviewed, it’s the press. But, in reality, the whole system is overloaded. Everything that most people dislike about the system really derives from this fact. If people were as enthusiastic about reading (or rather, buying) books as they are about writing them, the industry overall would not be in the poor economic situation it’s in now.

Tags: books, fiction, bookselling, writing

PW:Movies: Pride & Prejudice, X3

2006-06-17T19:58:00.000-04:00

Do you remember talking about Dawn Treader’s impression of Pride & Prejudice based on the most recent movie version? I saw that version a few days ago, and don’t blame Dawn Treader one bit. I was prepared for a very short story adaptation, but I felt the director, script writers, and whoever was responsible for the story didn’t understand the book or characters. The point of the Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice came through in the minutes of emotional cinema focused on Elizabeth Bennet--the swing in farmyard, the rain on the meadow, standing on cliff—beautiful to watch, but unessential to the story.

Besides the story's brevity being a fault, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley didn’t look like themselves. Darcy’s face seemed consistently blank, his lines delivered in a rush. Mr. Bingley came across like a nervous teenager, not a good-hearted, energetic man. And why did they do that to his hair?

In summary, Pride & Prejudice was an attractive film I don’t care to see again.

Last night, my sweet wife and I enjoyed X-Men: The Last Stand (I suppose the fourth movie will be called, “Episode 4: A New Hope,” and feature the minor character Fluke Piehawker who spreads happiness by putting a pie in your face). It’s about as good as X-Men United, though a little more complicated. Why are critics saying it’s impersonal and a bit dumb? The lines delivered by the movie’s U.S. President are dumb, but the movie as whole isn’t. Ok, the more I think about it, the more I could complain: Some characters say things I think are inconsistent with their personalities. Some of the fighting is clearly for dramatic effect and consequently looks dumb; but then if you start imagining these characters in a realistic environment, none of the stories make sense. Why doesn’t Magneto bring cases of bullets with him to strike through his opposition?

Still, I enjoyed the movie. The PG-13 rating was unneeded. I think it could have risen to PG and gained critical praise by replacing the foreplay between Jean Grey and Logan with more psychological struggle within Jean, but I shouldn't give film advice. If I made films, they would probably be too slow.

lw: About my dad

2006-06-17T19:24:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of my dad, Jordan Walker, in his prime. I'm not sure if it was taken before or after his brief stint in the army, when he served in the occupation forces in Japan. My guess would be it was after the army but before his marriage (roughly 1948), but I don't really know.

He's standing with his car, prudently equipped with tire chains, in front of the house where I grew up. That window at the top belongs to the first bedroom I would share with my brother Moloch, before I got my own room.

I remember the sweater well. Its color was maroon. I never saw him wear it myself. I don't think he cared for sweaters much. Since his birthday was December 4, this may be him modeling his birthday present, the first and last time he ever put it on. It got preserved in a cedar chest and passed on to me when I was a teenager. I liked it fine.

I learned self-deprecation from Dad. He dropped out of school when he was twelve, taking over running the farm for his father, whose health was failing. He wasn't really sorry to drop out. He wasn't a scholarly type. Still, you could tell he was ashamed of his lack of education. He frequently made jokes about being "just a dumb farmer."

Kick yourself first. It usually disarms people, and it hurts less than when somebody else does it. That was the lesson I learned from my dad.

He ran his farm, essentially single-handed, for almost forty years (my brothers and I didn't help him much, for reasons I may explain someday). If his pickup or tractor broke down, or if there was a wiring job to do or a cow having a hard time calving, Dad could generally figure out a way to handle it. He wasn't dumb. He was what they used to call "a man of his hands."

I was his firstborn son, and I must have been a major disappointment to him. Low birth weight, bad health, fussy from the beginning. Slept badly and puked a lot. And as I grew up I didn't gravitate towards sports or fishing or engines--things he understood. I liked books and the indoors. I'm pretty sure he wondered more than once whether he was raising a pansy.

We spent a year as each other's best friends, in Florida after Mom died. We went to Norway together. He was generous and funny and patient.

I miss him every day.

Lars Walker

Update: My uncle informs me that, based on the car (which he bought from Dad later) the picture must be from 1945, before Dad entered the army. So that's what it is.

lw: Even Vikings have tedium

2006-06-16T19:37:00.000-04:00

Back to the Ramada Hotel, nee Thunderbird, today, for Day Two of the Sons of Norway District Convention. Less challenge today. Even Scandinavians learn where to find their caucus rooms eventually, so aside from a brief mobilization to direct traffic in the lunch room (you try to stand between a Norwegian and his ham-and-cheese hoagie, and then talk to me about Thin Red Lines), we mostly sat around the hospitality suite, telling people to come in and have some coffee, nosh a few cookies.

Talked Norwegian history, immigration and (perhaps surprisingly, but not uncharacteristically) the Civil War, with other Vikings. One of the guys proudly showed off his thumb, with its recently severed first joint (a table saw casualty), just out of the bandage. It certainly doesn't reduce his effectiveness as a Viking reenactor. I'm sure there were plenty of missing and partial digits in Harald Hardrada's armies.

"My neighbor was the most encouraging," our friend said. "He told me I'm now qualified to teach high school shop."

Lars Walker

lw: Call for prayer

2006-06-15T22:36:00.000-04:00

I just found out (and verified it on his web board) that Jim Baen, the publisher who published my four novels, has had a massive stroke and is hospitalized in very grave condition.

Unless something has changed greatly since we parted company, he is not a believer. Your prayers for him would not be amiss.

Lars Walker

PW:A Creation Hymn

2006-06-15T21:30:00.000-04:00

Since Lars brought up creation, I'll direct your attention to Psalm 104, a poetic account of the Lord's powerful work at the beginning of time.

O LORD My God, You Are Very Great
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
covering yourself with light as with a garment,
stretching out the heavens like a tent.
He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;
he makes the clouds his chariot;
he rides on the wings of the wind;
he makes his messengers winds,
his ministers a flaming fire.

He set the earth on its foundations,
so that it should never be moved.
You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
At your rebuke they fled;
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.
The mountains rose, the valleys sank down
to the place that you appointed for them.
You set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth. . . .

That's beautiful. Read the rest from the English Standard Version here. - phil

PW:Books Against the War

2006-06-15T21:13:00.000-04:00

For a list of books against the free world's war against terror, see this USA Today article. I don't understand the lose-at-any-cost crowd, especially with the success we've had in the past couple weeks. - phil

lw: Lost your way? Ask the nearest Viking

2006-06-15T20:14:00.000-04:00

Back around the 9th Century, the Emporer of Constantinople, impressed by an abortive attempt by an overoptimistic Viking captain to conquer his city, decided to create a personal bodyguard made up entirely of these tall, warlike northerners. So several generations of Scandinavians (after the Norman conquest it became mostly Englishmen) got the opportunity to spend their youths in the palmy south, keeping the Empire in order.

This does not resemble my experience today much at all, but it's the first analogy that comes to mind. I took a vacation day today (and will Friday too) to help the Viking Age Club provide window dressing and traffic control at the Sons of Norway District Convention, held at the Ramada Hotel (formerly the Thunderbird Motel) in Bloomington (hard by the Mall of America, which is just like the Hagia Sophia, only bigger and less tasteful).

I'm saddened that the old Thunderbird has been swallowed up by a chain, but at least they hung on to the place's traditional decor, which is what the French might call "Le Mode Indiaine." A huge totem pole marks the entrance, and wherever you go on the inside there is Indian art, art about Indians, Native American art, art about Native Americans, and artifacts of the First Nations (for the sake of you Canadians). The only thing missing is a casino.

Back in the '70s there were demonstrations outside the place, with Indian activists screaming that Thunderbird was an offense to their traditions. White America, apparently, was expected to expunge all memory that Indians were ever around here. The management came to an accomodation with them in time, and I believe they got rid of some of their more questionable stuff. The atmosphere today is obsequious (if occasionally kitschy) Noble Savageism. If any Native American ever spoke rudely to his mother or grabbed more than his share of the buffalo steak, you won't learn of it at the Ramada.

Our assignment as Vikings was to loiter in high traffic areas, looking for people who seemed lost. This can be tough, as Norwegians generally look lost at the best of times. We would then ask them if they needed help, and direct them to the places they wanted to go.

It went pretty well, really. I did not, to my recollection, put anybody wrong. And yet the nagging voice mutters in the back of mind, "You messed it up. People found you abrasive. You made mistakes, and somebody probably got lost and had a heart attack from the stress, perishing in some deserted hotel corridor, his plaintive cries unheard."

But that's just what it means to be me. If I listened to those voices much I'd become an agoraphobe.

Plenty of time for that next year.

Lars Walker

PW:Rare Book News

2006-06-15T12:54:00.000-04:00

Speaking of really old documents, Rare Book News has several interesting headlines, including the sale of articles by Albert Einstein for $42,000 and some attention to Scotland's National Booktown, Wigtown.

"Run your fingers down my spine. You know how much you want to." Oh, my. - phil

PW:300,000 Tiny Fragments

2006-06-15T12:39:00.000-04:00

The University of Manchester's Center for Jewish Studies is using digital imaging to assemble thousands of manuscript fragments found in a Cairo synagogue. Libraries around the world have pieces of the work of Moses Maimonides, "a scholar and writer whose findings were hugely influential on modern Judaic thought," according the AP. The Center plans to assemble the fragments without physically bringing the pieces to Britain. [seen on Nextbook] - phil

lw: Book devaluation

2006-06-14T19:59:00.000-04:00

Today in the library I pulled out a box I’d found yesterday. Inside, in a plastic bag, lay one of the oldest (though not the very oldest) books that I’ve found in our collection. It’s a large book (about a ten inches tall and three inches thick), printed in Norway or Denmark (I’m not entirely sure) in 1840. It’s the second volume of a collection of Luther’s sermons.

The leather binding has very obviously been repaired by hand. Someone carefully tacked thin bands of steel (or tin, I’m uncertain) around the edges, and repaired a split in the spine with an over-and-under stitch in the leather. He (I assume it was a man) took enough pride in his work to affix triangular plates to the front and back covers, with what I assume were his initials embossed in them with a punch.

I imagine him as a farmer, perhaps one who made a side income repairing kettles and coffee pots for his neighbors. Thick, scarred, callused fingers, surprisingly gentle when he worked at delicate jobs. I imagine he was probably a Haugean pietist (my people), because they were the great booklovers among the common Norwegians in those days. This may have been the only book he owned; the great treasure in his home.

Later on I turned to our library inventory project. My assistants did yeoman work with that this year, making far more progress in a few months than I ever expected. Today I finished the books in the main section. Next I’ll hit the reference, which ought to be somewhat easier, since many of the volumes will have been acquisitioned in sequence.

I was at the tail end of the Library of Congress classificatiaon. Ours is a specialized collection, so the books run out rapidly once you’ve finished the “B’s” (the religion section). Today I polished off “R” through “Z” (Science, Medicine, Engineering, Business, many subjects probably entirely unrepresented).

Found an old Dell paperback about UFOs. “Who acquisitioned this?” I wondered. Not even a Christian book on UFOs (I suppose there are such things), but just a common mass market paperback potboiler.

It was an early acquisition. I don’t know who ran the library that far back. Maybe she (I assume it was a she. Could be wrong) had an interest in the subject. Maybe less discretion was employed (or thought necessary) in those days.

And then I thought of the unknown Norwegian who’d repaired the Luther book. What would he have thought of the idea of wondering whether a book was worth having? “Throw a book away?” he’d have thought. “Would you throw away gold and diamonds too?”

Which doesn’t really tell me much, except that times have changed, there has been major Book Inflation, and I’m rich beyond my ancestors’ most covetous dreams.

Lars Walker

lw: Today is Flag Day

2006-06-14T09:43:00.000-04:00

For the United States. Just in case you'd forgotten.

Lars Walker

PW:Classic into Pulp Fiction

2006-06-13T23:00:00.000-04:00

Slate solicitied some artists to compose covers for classics in the garish style of pulp fiction. See the salacious results here. [First seen on Sacred Fems] - phil

PW:CS Lewis, a Writer of Pulp Fiction?

2006-06-13T22:48:00.000-04:00

Writer Rod Bennett believes “[C.S.] Lewis was heavily influenced by his many early experiences with ‘trashy’ literature.” He calls him a pulp fiction writer and lays out his case in four posts, quoting from Lewis’ letters where he confesses his enjoyment or exposure to Amazing StoriesAstounding and , both pulp sci-fi rags, and many other works considered “trashy” by critics. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, Bennett says. In fact, it was through Narnia that Bennett found interest in Mere Christianity.

Lnks to the series on Bennett's blog: one, two, three, four

If Bennett’s premise raises the eyebrows of any Lewis fans, I think the trouble may be in the words “pulp” and “trashy.” I don’t think Bennett thinks Lewis’ science trilogy is trashy, but influenced by mass market stories of his day which were thought to be trashy by those who claimed to know what good and bad literature should be. But calling Lewis’ stories “pulp” may be the same as calling them “trashy” for some. Pulp fiction is lurid, tantalizing material written for commercial gain or cheap entertainment--nothing of lasting value. Again, I don’t think Bennett is arguing that Narnia and The Space Trilogy are cheap little thrillers, but that may be what comes across in the word “pulp.” - phil

Tags: pulp fiction, fiction, pulp fiction, books, CS Lewis

lw: God and genes

2006-06-13T20:33:00.000-04:00

I’ve been kind of surprised that I haven’t read more about this story.

Dr. Francis Collins, the man who headed up the Human Genome Project, which successfully mapped the human genome for the first time in history, says he sees the orderliness of DNA as evidence of the existence of God.

On closer examination I see two reasons why Christians haven’t been shouting about it more. One is that (contrary to my original understanding of the story) Dr. Collins was not converted to belief through this research. He has been a Christian for a long time.

The second reason is that Collins isn’t a Creationist. He sees no problem believing in Christianity and evolution at the same time.

I won’t argue that point. I hope we can agree that it isn’t necessary to be a Creationist to be saved.

I salute Dr. Collins’ courage in going public with his belief. Although I’ve never been a scientist (or even very good at science) I have an idea his stand hasn’t made him many friends in his profession.

A lot of people are honestly puzzled over the Christian insistence on reconciling our beliefs with scientific fact. “You’ve got science, and you’ve got faith,” they say. “They’re two different things. What does one have to do with the other?”

For some religions (perhaps most, if you count each religion, rather than going by comparative membership statistics) it wouldn’t be a problem. They do, as suggested, separate the physical and the spiritual into two distinct, water-tight compartments. Hindus and Buddhists have no problem there, nor did the ancient Greeks.

But Christianity is different. We have these venerable creeds that proclaim that God “became Man” in Jesus Christ, “was crucified, died, and was buried,” and “rose again on the third day.” The center of our religion has never been Christ’s moral teaching (which was 99% unoriginal, as all true moral systems are), nor in supernatural visions or ecstasies. The center is the belief that God became Man, died, and rose again. In history. In an identifiable place at a (substantially) identifiable date. Christians proclaim that God came into space and time, in a physical body.

Orthodox Christianity permits no disconnect between the physical and the spiritual. The two realms are separate, but they have commerce with one another.

“Be reasonable. Separate them and give it a rest,” the secularist would say. “We’ll all be happier.”

Which translates to, “We’ll divide Reality into two realms. The first realm will be called Fact, and will contain everything that really exists. The second realm will contain everything else. We’ll call that Faith, and you can have it.”

There are two problems with that.

One is that it would be heresy.

The other is that if the early church had embraced it, modern science would never have been invented.

Lars Walker

PW:How Much Is That Cat on the TV?

2006-06-13T18:17:00.000-04:00

From Reuters--"Ten cats in search of owners will spend the next 10 days in a New York store window, their every move caught on camera for a reality TV show on which they will compete for best sleeper and mouse-catcher."

Would you buy that for a dollar? - phil

PW: Another Popular Book Award

2006-06-12T21:58:00.000-04:00

That great little online bookseller, BookBrowse, has announced their annual readers' choice awards. The site reports: "In April 2006, BookBrowse's subscribers rated their favorite books of 2005. 942 respondents cast a total of 5,631 votes." The three winners, based on a weighted point system, are:

Most Popular Book: The Closers by Michael Connelly

Most Popular Debut: The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

Most Popular Category Winner: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Votes for these awards were cast on the list of favorite books from 2005, which includes Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down, Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of The Mind, Harlan Coben's The Innocent, and Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair. - phil

Tags: books, book awards, awards, readers

PW:Bambi Movie Untrue to Book

2006-06-12T21:11:00.000-04:00

I suppose if you suspected Walt Disney or his team did not write the Bambi story on their own, you would also suspect they didn't hold true to the original tale. That is Disney's reputation. David Rakoff has looked into that tale, written by Felix Salten in 1923:

Salten's writing has not a trace of anthropomorphized cuteness. Bambi's forest is peopled (creatured?) with characters by turns arrogant, venal, gossipy, and engaging—as flawed and varied as the cosmopolitan fauna Salten must have encountered daily in his life in Vienna.

Tags: bambi, original

lw: Kellerman on the human mind

2006-06-12T20:27:00.000-04:00

Just finished Jonathan Kellerman’s Over the Edge. The story involves the investigation of a serial killer who targets homosexual prostitutes. I was preparing myself for some preaching about “gay” issues, but was pleasantly surprised.

I was even more pleasantly surprised by the following passage. Here the hero, Dr. Alex Delaware, is talking to a young female student, Jen, one of whose schoolmates has been arrested for the murders. They are discussing the suspect’s apparent psychosis, and the question of whether it might have been induced somehow by a personal enemy.

Jennifer drew her serape around her and talked animatedly.
“At first I approached the issue from a purely cognitive perspective. Could you scramble someone’s mind using purely psychological techniques?”

“Brainwashing?”

“Yes, but relentlessly—to the point of severe psychosis. Like what Charles Boyer tried to do to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight. But that’s movie stuff. In real life it wouldn’t work; stress by itself isn’t enough. I mean, think about the greatest stress a person could go through—the Nazi concentration camps, right?” Her lids lowered and closed for a moment. “My dad spent his adolescence in Auschwitz, and lots of his friends are survivors. I’ve talked to them about it. The trauma affected them for life—anxieties, depression, physical problems—but none of them actually went crazy. Daddy verifies that. The only people he remembers exhibiting psychotic symptoms were those who were psychotic when they entered the camp. Does that square with the data?”

“Yes. And with clinical experience. Over the years I’ve seen thousands of children and families under incredible stress, and I can’t recall a single instance of stress-induced psychosis. Human beings are remarkably resilient.”

She considered that, then said:

“And yet it’s pretty easy to elicit psychoticlike behavior in rats and monkeys with stress. Dr. Gaylord’s shown that. Electrify the floors of their cages, prevent escape, shock them at random intervals, and they just curl up, defecate, and withdraw. Do it long enough, and they never recover.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “Human beings are a lot more complex, aren’t they? As organisms.”

“Yes.” I smiled. “As organisms.”

Lars Walker

Tags: Jonathan Kellerman, mystery, psychology, novel

lw: Wireless again

2006-06-10T19:30:00.000-04:00

I know many of you were losing sleep over my wireless router problems, so I'm happy to report that I'm back online, offwire.

Picked up two Andrew Klavans (found them in the horror section at the second hand bookstore) and two Jonathan Kellermans the other day. To my surprise, I found myself compelled to read the Kellermans first, though I like Klavan better.

The only explanation I can find is that I have an unhealthy compulsion to read about insanity and psychological disorders.

Can't imagine why.

Lars Walker

PW:GodBlogCon 2006

2006-06-09T23:51:00.000-04:00

Last year's convention of Christian bloggers sounded like a good time, so I would expect this one to follow suit.

Should be a good time for photos.

Learn more at the GodBlog Conference site.

PW:Literary Contest; $500 worth of prizes

2006-06-09T23:40:00.000-04:00

Buy a Friend a Book has coordinated an interesting contest for the start of July. The procedure for entry: solve six puzzles to be revealed on the first six days of July, then use the solutions to answer a question. Three correct submissions will be randomnly selected to win a load of books and a few related literary things. Read some of the details at MetaxuCafe; follow the links for the rest. - phil

lw: Haunted

2006-06-09T18:58:00.000-04:00

In spite of my manly reticence on the subject, some of you may have guessed that I'm a big fan of the Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø.

I recently picked up her second-to-latest album, "Nordisk Vinternatt" (Nordic Winter Night). As far as I can tell, nobody's selling it in this country (although they're selling the companion album, "Into Paradise," which has an almost identical cover, for maximum confusion). So I have to link to a Norwegian seller from whom none of you will order, rendering this entire post irrelevant.

But I've got to tell you. This album haunts me. It's not my favorite of her albums (at least not yet), but it seems as if every song on the thing embodies that haunting "Northernness" (as in C.S. Lewis' Surprised By Joy) that so delights me in the music of Edvard Grieg. I've got these songs with me as "earworms" all day long. And I don't mind at all.

Had to get that off my chest.

Lars Walker

PW:Unplain English

2006-06-08T18:30:00.000-04:00

King Wenclas criticizes a book review that is difficult to understand. - phil

lw: My reasoned, compassionate response to the death of Zarqawi

2006-06-08T09:04:00.000-04:00

"I will sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father's God, and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a warrior;
the Lord is his name."

(Exodus 15:1-3, NIV)

Children will live to be adults because this wicked man is dead. I'm flying my flag today.

Lars Walker

PW:Alternative Best Fiction List

2006-06-07T23:10:00.000-04:00

Beth Quittman has tallied the results of her blogger poll of best fiction: "The work that received the most votes as the best work of American fiction in the past 25 years is The New York Trilogy, by Paul Auster." Leif Enger's Peace Like a River came in second. - phil

Tags: books, awards, lists, fiction

PW:Literary Awards

2006-06-07T22:39:00.000-04:00

Ian McEwan's novel Saturday wins the James Tait Black Memorial prize. Judges are calling it a "tour de force of skilful writing." The award is the oldest literary honor in the United Kingdom, started in 1919.

Zadie Smith's novel On Beauty succeeds in taking the Orange prize for fiction by women. Her competition was stiff, according to the report.

The Crime Writers’ Association will hand out Dagger awards next Monday in London.

The Christy Awards for Christian fiction will be announced July 8 in Denver, CO. (corrected date)

PW:Lit Magazines/Journals

2006-06-07T22:11:00.000-04:00

This Saturday in New York City, editors and fans of several literature magazines will congregate for readings and drinks. It's the Legion of Lit Mags.

But in case that isn't your thing, The Emerging Writers Network has an ongoing offer on literary journal subscriptions. If you subscribe to at least three magazines, you pay for one subscription less than you receive. - phil

Tags: magazines, literary, literary magazines, lit mag

PW:Field-Tested Books

2006-06-07T21:24:00.000-04:00

Author James Finn Garner says, "Summer reading should be, by definition, that which Fall-Winter-Spring reading is not. . . . I set aside Summer to enjoy the things no one is talking about. At my family cottage I have a personal rule to read only books more than 50 years old. In this way, modern novelists and their narcissistic obsessions get the heave-ho . . ."

That's how he begins his report on reading a collection of Damon Runyon stories. Garner is one of many contributors to Field-Tested Books from Coudal Partners. By coincidence, I was reading some of Garner's Politically Correct Bedtime Stories this week--funny stuff.

I learned of these experience reports from Laura Demanski (Our Girl in Chicago) who reports on a series of mysteries chosen by the family for her vacation reading. They made her an offer what she could not refuse, if youse know what I mean. - phil

Tags: books, novels, reading, mystery

lw: Short rant

2006-06-07T19:43:00.000-04:00

Hot day today, mostly clear skies. I mowed my lawn this evening, to forestall that inevitable moment when my neighbors surround my house in a mob, waving pitchforks and torches, shouting "The horror ends here!"

I wore jeans as I mowed. Long jeans.

I know that appalls and offends many of you. I'm well aware that in today's America, shorts are considered acceptable (even obligatory) wear from Easter to Memorial Day, in all venues public and private, and especially when you're doing anything remotely like work.

As in so many questions of dress, I'm a social rebel about this shorts mania. I fly my freak flag in the form of long pants, at all times when not in the privacy of my home.

I've always hated shorts. I think it had something to do with my dysfunctional home. I was expected to act like a grownup from the age of eight, and I figured that gave me the right to dress like a grownup too. And in my mind, shorts have always been kids' clothes.

Maybe it's a perceptional thing too. I seem to respond more sensitively than most people to that murderous, mindless force known as Nature. I feel biting cold while other people are still feeling "brisk." The ruffle of the breeze through my leg hair does not soothe or refresh me. It irritates me. I'd rather have my legs cased in good, American denim (made in Guatemala).

(Actually I'd rather have my whole body cased in my house most of the time, but that's not an option.)

And don't even get me started on people who wear shorts to church.

That is my pronouncement.

You know what to do with it.

("What? Oh, down the hall and to the right.")

Lars Walker

PW:Norman Rockwell Tried to Tell Us Something

2006-06-06T21:43:00.000-04:00

Speaking of secret knowledge, a short documentary exposes a secret society, which included Sir Walter Raleigh, William Shakespeare, Jules Verne, and Norman Rockwell, dedicated to preserving a bloodline and protecting the innocent. Learn the truth of The Norman Rockwell Code. - phil

lw: The numbness of the Beast

2006-06-06T19:47:00.000-04:00

When I was traveling with the musical group to which I referred in my "Big Snake" story, we met a fascinating young Baptist pastor. He'd been involved with the hippie movement in California, had been mixed up with Wiccans, and had all kinds of fascinating, spooky stories to tell (in fact he was one of the inspirations for the character of Rory Bohannan in Wolf Time).

With time and experience I've come to remember the man with a certain skepticism. But there's one thing he told us that I've never forgotten.

"Talk to anybody about the occult," he said, "and they'll almost always respond the same way. They'll say, 'I don't believe in it. Tell me about it.'"

It's that dark fascination, that sexiness, that seems to me the most important thing to remember when we think about the supernatural, particularly the demonic. And I suspect that the fascination with the number 666 and the Antichrist is not something that's doing Christianity much good, bottom line.

People like to discover secrets and solve puzzles. They're fascinated by Hidden Knowledge (that was one of the great drawing points of the Gnostics). When Christians diagram elaborate predictions about the End Times, claiming to know when the world will end, or who the Antichrist will be, I believe they're trading in occult sex-appeal at the expense of obeying the Lord's direct commands.

He says (quite clearly, I think), in Matthew 24:36-39 (NIV):

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.... they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man."

And in the same chapter, verses 45-46:

"Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns."

You'll note that the faithful servant is not praised for knowing when to expect his Master. He's praised for being at work.

The whole point, it seems to me, is that the servant isn't watching the clock (that seldom goes over well with employers). He's engaged in his job. The warning of an unexpected return isn't a challenge to figure out the schedule, it's a warning to work every day as if it were the last one.

In other words, a lot of Christians have missed the point of Jesus' warning entirely.

There's a cheesy bumper sticker that says, "Jesus is coming soon. Look busy."

Not a great attitude.

But there are worse ones.

Lars Walker

PW:Plain English

2006-06-06T19:27:00.000-04:00

Roy Jacobsen asks, "Why don't people write in plain English?" He offers a few reasons.

In my experience, the worst offenders seem to be covering up the fact they have little to say. You can't write a few paragraphs without saying anything unless you use convoluted language. - phil

PW: Christian Fiction

2006-06-06T12:31:00.000-04:00

Kevin Holtsberry is wading into more fiction from the Christian Booksellers Association with a year old network called Christian Fiction Blog Tours. He has reviewed his first novel from the network, The Hidden by Kathryn Mackel. Kevin has written a thorough review as usual and enjoyed it, praising the author for being a good storyteller.

Also in the vein of Christian Fiction, editor Terry Whalin blogs about the book The Making of a Christian Bestseller, which he thinks is mistitled but a great book. His first post addresses the title problem. His second post praises specific points inside the book, including insight from editors who rarely comment in print. [by way of Active Christian Media] - phil

lw: Chasing the Rodeo, by W. K. Stratton

2006-06-05T20:11:00.000-04:00

I mentioned Chasing the Rodeo a while back. It was recommended to me by frequent BwB commenter Aitchmark, who’s a friend of the author’s (he’s mentioned in the acknowledgments). I put my money where my mouth was and procured a copy of my own.

It’s a good book. I can’t imagine a better introduction for someone interested in the historical and cultural phenomenon that is Rodeo in America (unless you can find something with pictures. Pictures would have been nice).

But I have to say that it didn’t contribute much to my personal happiness.

It’s a sad book. For two reasons, I think.

First of all, it’s an elegiac book. It’s about the present, but the present is seen in the light of things past and gone forever. We see the today’s professional rodeo, with its glitzy, heavily merchandized, sponsor-heavy championships (not to mention the new extreme sport promoted by the Professional Bull Riders Association, where there’s only one competition and some of the riders wear helmets and Nikes). Stratton compares it to the old days, when there was a lot less money but the riders were by thunder cowboys, not “athletes” from the suburbs. The last rodeo Stratton visits in the book is a small town one, and he feels that the true spirit lives on there. But it’s a very small town, in a very remote location. I can’t say the future looks bright, judging from what I read.

The thread that really ties the book together is a personal one, also sad. Twined among the contemporary reporting and historical information is the story of Stratton’s own search for his natural father, “Cowboy Don” Stratton, a “rodeo bum” who abandoned his mother and never met his own son. Inevitably a romantic figure in Stratton’s boyhood imagination, the evidence Stratton uncovers reveals him to have been a man of little substance, either as a person or as a cowboy. But that doesn’t make the loss easier to bear.

The second sad thing about Chasing the Rodeo is Stratton’s own apparent ambivalence about the story he’s telling, the people he’s describing. This paragraph from Chapter 4 epitomized it for me:

My college reading lists included works by Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, N. Scott Momaday and Leslie Silko. I’d consume those books and admire their ethnicity. These writers had cultures to write about. As for me, I was just a white-bread American, generic as all get-out. But now I am thinking that I was the product of a culture, a culture that was far removed from Ward and June and the Brady kids, though it was hard for me to see it at the time. Kicker culture.

“Kicker,” of course, is short for a scatological term that wouldn’t be appropriate on this blog. I understand what Stratton’s saying, I think. I can empathize too.

I grew up in the country, not in the West among ranches, but in the Midwest on a farm. I lived with dirt and animal manure and straw dust and hayseed, and I wanted nothing more than to get away from it. Not because I despised the people I lived among. They were good people—good as any and better (I think) than most. But because there was nothing for me there. The town library had a few hundred books in it, and living on a farm I didn’t have access to them anyway. I’d never been in a bookstore in my life. There was all kinds of stuff I wanted to learn that I just didn’t have access to in Goodhue County, Minnesota.

And when you want to sell yourself as a writer, small town origins aren’t much of a recommendation. You can’t help envying the people who grew up in Manhattan. They’ve got instant credibility (paradoxically because they come from a place less famed for honesty).

And here, it seems to me, Stratton tries too hard. In attempting to validate his “Kicker” culture, he tells story after story about the diversity of Rodeo—it’s Mexican origins, its Native American connections, the Hawaiian cowboys who won the Steer Roping championship in 1908, and (of course) Bill Pickett, the great black cowboy who invented bulldogging. “We’ve got diversity too!” he seems to be shouting. “We’re not just a bunch of rednecks!”

He needn’t have bothered. The intellectuals he’s trying to impress rejected his book anyway. There’s only one group left in this country that it’s still OK to despise, and it’s going to take more than one book to persuade Our Betters to give up that pleasure.

If he really wanted respect, he should have written about the Gay Rodeo (there is such a thing).

The day will come, no doubt, when Kicker culture will be appreciated and honored.

But that will be after the last Kicker is safely in his grave.

Lars Walker

PW:Another Word from You and I'll . . .

2006-06-04T23:25:00.000-04:00

"[Your] brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage."

In case you need some choice words for the start of your week, let me point you to the
Shakespearean Insulter.
I cannot be held responsible for what you do with it.

PW:Like a Hawthorne Romance

2006-06-03T09:36:00.000-04:00

I have been offer the opportunity to review a first novel, New Light, which I note has already been reviewed over here. The story looks interesting. I hope to get to it this summer. I bring it up now because reviewer Tim Gebhart says he is confused by the book being described as a Hawthorne-style romance. In case you are also in the dark on this, let me pull out the dictionary:

A tale in prose or verse the incidents of which are hung upon what is marvellous and fictitious. These tales were originally written in the Romance language, and the expression, "In Romance we read," came in time to refer to the tale, and not to the language in which it was told.

So New Light appears to be a magical story, though not in the exact vein as contemporary fantasy, so it is labeled a romance. I look forward to it. - phil

PW: Happy 10 Year Anniversary to Abebooks.com

2006-06-03T09:12:00.000-04:00

Abebooks, a worldwide new and used bookselling network, is celebrating 10 years of online excellence with a contest and a campaign of non-books, that is books which don't exist because (cue the jingle) if you can't find it at Abebooks, it doesn't exist. Send a postcard with an example of a Not Book such as Whoops. I Was Wrong, by President G. W. Bush. That joke is a liberal favorite, isn't it? I'm looking for News and Other Fantasies, by the editors of the N.Y. Times. - phil

lw: Big snake story

2006-06-02T19:48:00.000-04:00

I’ve had another of my insight-free days, so I’m reduced to dipping into my rapidly diminishing stock of “interesting” stories from my past. That’s a little like fishing for potato chip pieces smaller than a fingernail in the bottom of the bag. My life hasn’t been all that eventful.

It was long before many of you children were born—1970 or ’71, I think, which would mean I was twenty or twenty-one years old (it’s handy for a mathematically challenged guy like me to be born in a round year like 1950).

I’d spent the previous year traveling with the musical group I belonged to back then, doing concerts and youth ministry in Lutheran churches, mostly in the Midwest. There were five of us guys, and four of us decided to rent half a double bungalow in South Minneapolis together (the odd man out had just gotten married). I had one year of college left to go, and was taking a further year out to work and save up for that final year’s tuition.

It was a one-bathroom place, but we’d rigged a shower in a corner of the basement. My friend Joel used to get up early in the morning to use that shower before heading off to work.

One winter morning I was awakened by a commotion. The other guys were out in the kitchen, talking. When it showed no sign of dying down, I got up and went to see what was the matter.

Joel told me he’d found a five-foot snake in the basement shower.

“I thought it was a practical joke at first,” he said. “I thought somebody’d put a rubber snake down there to scare me. But then it moved.”

Very cautiously I went down the stairs and took a look.

Sure enough, there was a big snake curled in the corner of the shower.

Joel called the Humane Society, but couldn’t get anybody to pay attention. They assumed, apparently, that he was playing a prank.

So he called WCCO Radio. Back in those days, WCCO was the effective public square for the Twin Cities and quite a few surrounding counties. It featured a lot of non-political talk, as well as middle-of-the-road music (a format that no longer exists. I miss it).

The announcers, hungry for interesting local stories on a slow news morning, mentioned our snake a few minutes later. Within another few minutes we got a call back from the Humane Society, and within the hour a volunteer was out with a specialized device, to catch it and take it away in a burlap sack.

“It’s a boa constrictor,” he told us. “Probably somebody’s pet.”

Joel, in order to be at work on time, took a taxi downtown soon thereafter. The driver asked him if he’d heard the snake story. He told him he was the guy who found it, but the driver didn’t believe him.

Our story was in the paper and on the TV news that evening. We were famous for one day.

The snake’s owner, a former resident of our house, even contacted the humane society and was joyfully reunited with his pet, whose name (we were informed) was George. He'd lost him roughly six months before. George, apparently, had been living in our walls all the time since then.

I have pictures.

I want to say the snake was six feet long, but I recognize the human impulse to exaggerate these things, so I’ll stick with five feet.

Five and a half, at most.

I thought then, and think now, that that’s all the snake anyone strictly needs.

Lars Walker

lw: Flesh and Blood and Therapy by Jonathan Kellerman

2006-06-01T20:52:00.000-04:00

I think it was somebody over at National Review Online who listed Jonathan Kellerman as a thriller writer that conservatives can enjoy. I gave him a try, and am happy to report that I’ve greatly enjoyed the two Kellermans I’ve read to date.

These books were both part of the Alex Delaware mystery series. Alex is a Los Angeles psychologist who consults with the police department. His friendship with Detective Milo Sturgis (of whom more below) serves to get him involved in more cases than would otherwise seem believable.

Flesh and Blood centers on the murder of a young woman, a former prostitute, who was a patient of Alex’s as a young girl. He only had a couple sessions with her, and the end of the therapy was not his choice. Still, he can’t shake the guilty feeling that if he’d handled things better with her she wouldn’t have ended up on the path that led to her violent death. Further investigation and the connecting of dots lead Alex to suspect that a serial killer is at work. The trail leads into the world of pornography (both the “classy” and vulgar sorts), and there is considerable scope for examining the toll that the flesh trade takes on people’s lives.

Therapy, a later novel, concerns the murder of a young couple who appear to have been making out in a car in an upscale L.A. neighborhood. The male victim is quickly identified as the son of a prosperous family. The female remains unknown for the bulk of the story. The investigation stretches to the door of an extremely uncooperative celebrity psychologist, and in the end to an international organization whose culpability will certainly delight the heart of every conservative reader.

I don’t know if Kellerman would call himself a conservative, but he is certainly no doctrinaire liberal. His openmindedness allows him to treat his characters more evenhandedly than many contemporary authors do. It’s a great relief to see something other than “the usual suspects” trotted out when it comes to villains. And even the villains are treated with understanding, as genuine human beings, not just types.

Christians in the books are handled better than I’m accustomed to. Therapy features three characters identified as born-again Christians. One is a young detective who seems to be smart, honest and hard-working, if a little straitlaced. The other two are a couple who briefly come under suspicion. They are open about their faith, but also not embarrassed to say they’re living together outside marriage. Kellerman either doesn’t understand that taboo in our community, or understands too well that that our practice doesn’t always match our principles.

A problematic element (for me) is Alex’s cop friend, Milo Sturgis. Sturgis is openly homosexual, although it’s hard to imagine a less stereotypical “gay.” Milo is big and ugly. He dresses badly, and his opinions, social and political, don’t appear to be such as would be applauded by gay activists. He’s pretty much like any cop, except that he has a boyfriend.

Which is, no doubt, the point.

With many other authors, I’d be suspicious that they were trying to change my mind by inserting a character like that. But Kellerman has won my trust, at least for now. I’ve got a couple more of his books, and I look forward very much to reading them.

Recommended.

Lars Walker

PW:Recent Reviews and Book Points

2006-06-01T12:51:00.000-04:00

One of things I don't like about Blogger is its lack of "Recent Posts" or "Top Posts" in the sidebar. I plan to update the template with a "Top Posts" section sometime soon, so that will take care of one of them. In lue of a sidebar item and in case you missed them, let me point out some book reviews or author posts we've done:

Tags: books, Reviews

PW:Why Buy a Bestseller?

2006-05-31T22:19:00.000-04:00

A post by Bud Parr, "The Culture of Impatience And The Real Market," makes me wonder why we find popularity appealing in a book (any artwork or entertainment I suppose). Does a story seem more interesting to you after you learn thousands of others--faceless, nameless readers--bought it and, by inference, liked it?

I think it lends credibility to it for me. For instance, The Kite Runner and The Time Traveler's Wife have been on bestseller lists for a long time. When I notice them again, I think they must be halfway decent, maybe even good. I want to read them sometime, and since I'm a slow reader and buyer, sometime takes a while.

But The Da Vinci Code is working against this feeling. The more I'm exposed to it, the more I dislike it, so when I see it again on a bestseller list, I am reminded that even lousy books sell big if they push the right buttons. This cooperates with my growing distrust of bestseller lists in general, and at the end of the day, I go to sleep unimpressed by any title I saw on any list.

And yet--great books will sell, won't they? Quick readers will rejoice over a new, wonderful novel and tell their friends who may buy it soon and influence someone's list, and thus Gilead sold 345, 000 or so last year. Word of mouth is how books are sold, right? Maybe bestseller lists are the faceless equivalent of hand selling or personal recommendation. Attention: This week, hundreds of readers like you bought Mama's Gravy Is Too White, by Amos Picklebeer. It may be the one you are looking for. Give it a try for 10% off. - phil

Tags: bestseller, books, novel, bookselling

PW:Fatherhood and The Buddha

2006-05-31T21:55:00.000-04:00

I listened to couple podcasts today, one from Chronicle Books. Professionally nice, funny, dealing with the protocol for vomiting on the rollercoaster and details of a travel guide to the no-doubt lush paradise of Phaic Tan. While browsing the Chronicle Books site, I found a book on fatherhood called, Crouching Father, Hidden Toddler.

Experienced dad and aspiring guru C.W. Nevius expounds on the ancient concept of wu wei (i.e., going with the flow) as well as some handy tips picked up from kung fu movies. An array of short essays ponder on such koans as what is the sound of one child napping?

Deep. What is the sound of one child napping? I feel peace washing over me simply as I'm trying to remember it. - phil

Tags: fatherhood, zen, humor, parenting, funny

lw: Even more than chocolate?

2006-05-31T18:49:00.000-04:00

I forgot to mention the weirdest thing of all about my Live Steel Weekend. I forgot to eat.

I'd be sitting in the camp in the evening, after the festival visitors had dispersed, and I'd realize "I haven't had a meal today."

The Skjaldborg guys said it's common for them to forget to eat.

That's something that's never happened to me before. I'm not one of those people who forget food. Ever.

We're talking about deep, murky waters of psychology here. You already know I'm not normal. And I'm well aware that my delight in swordplay admits of numerous embarrassing Freudian explanations.

Personally, I think Freud suffered from Sword Envy.

Lars Walker

PW: I Think I'll Name My Next Child Damien

2006-05-31T12:53:00.000-04:00

Kim Riddlebarger, senior pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California, says, "Let the 6/6/06 Madness Begin!" His new book, Man of Sin, which deals with the biblical statements on the Antichrist, is now available. Looks like a great book. There's certainly a need for clarity on this subject. - phil

PW:Austen, Austen, Everywhere in the UK

2006-05-31T12:27:00.000-04:00

Jane Austen's Persuasion is raining from the skies in Portsmouth, England, and the Hampshire County Council loves it. "Richard Ward, the head of libraries, said: 'This is a simple, but brilliant idea and hopefully will get people reading and encourage people into our libraries.'" - phil

Tags: jane austen, books, libraries, Persuasion, England, classics

PW:Dan Brown

2006-05-30T23:41:00.000-04:00

John Zmirak reports on a conversation:

But Ted didn’t rise to the bait. He just shook his head. “Dan Brown’s not anti-Christian. He’s not anti-anything. I doubt he’s pro-anything, either, except pro-Dan Brown. That book has as much of an agenda as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hockey. Dan Brown doesn’t have enough conviction to make a decent agnostic. . . . But he wanted to be a novelist. He kept pestering me about it, so finally I gave him this paperback, Writing the Blockbuster Novel, by Albert Zuckerman. It’s a paint-by-numbers guide on how to write a page-turner.

[by way of Will Duquette] Tags: dan brown, thriller, writing, Da Vinci Code

PW:Vote for the Great American Novel

2006-05-30T23:19:00.000-04:00

Power Line has picked a fight over the greatest American novel. Many have chosen to jump on Steinbeck.

But you, yes, you can vote every 24 hours here in the sidebar poll. Will you choose The Sound and the Fury? My Antonia? To Kill a Mockingbird? Let me know. I choose Moby Dick, but seriously, I don't know nothing about voting for no novels. [by way of Books, Inq] - phil

lw: Living by the sword

2006-05-30T20:18:00.000-04:00

I’m back, undamaged and in better spirits than previously. The improvement in my morale can probably be best explained by linking to some pictures of the event I attended, already posted on the Viking Age Club website by the ever-resourceful “Jarl” Eric Anderson.

Here’s a picture of John Chadwell, leader of the Skjaldborg live steel combat group, giving us preliminary instructions. I can be seen in the background, looking swashbuckling in a red garment known as a “gambeson.” The gambeson is a padded shirt you wear under your mail. Mail by itself (as often seen in movies) is a very bad protection, almost worse than no armor at all.

Here’s a picture of three fearsome Vikings preparing for battle in a shield-wall. I’m the one on the right. The shield wall was the primary Viking battle formation. They would attack in tight order, with shields locked like this. Then both sides would hack at one another until one wall broke, at which point the side with its wall intact would have all the momentum.

Here’s a view of a shield wall (different personnel, though I’m still anchoring the left end) advancing on the enemy. Every man is banging his weapon on his shield to intimidate the other side (which is doing precisely the same thing).

And finally, here is the picture I want to be remembered by when I’m dead.

You’ll note that I look as if I’m enjoying myself. That’s because I am.

(What’s really weird is that that picture is, in all its essentials, just like the pictures of Viking battles I used to draw, my paper hidden behind my books, during classroom lectures in junior high and high school. I feel like a drug user going psychotic. My imagination seems to be becoming my reality.)

The weekend as a whole was a mixed experience. It’s about a six hour drive to Elk Horn, Iowa, which is closer to Omaha than to Des Moines. One of the guys in the club brought an extra tent along, the personal tent of one of our founders, for my use. It was something of an honor to be entrusted with it. The weather forecast called for hot and sunny weather. I’m not a lover of sleeping in tents, but I figured the lack of rain would help.

On Friday night we were hit with a powerful thunderstorm that took out power in the town, smashed down a large section of a nearby tree, and blew in through the tent flaps and dripped from the ridge pole, forcing me to get up several times to try to reconfigure my stuff to keep them in what seemed to be dry places.

Not that that interfered with my sleep. I wasn’t sleeping in the first place. I didn’t even sleep the second night, when I was exhausted and it didn’t rain.

The second challenge was male companionship. I’ve always been nervous with other guys (I’m even more nervous with women, but for different reasons). My unfailing policy in male groups is to bring out the self-deprecating humor from the start, as a verbal substitute for the behavior of the low-ranking wolf who presents his undefended throat to the alpha male: “Hi! My name is Poindexter, and I’m no threat at all to you!”

When the evenings grew dark, and the drinking got serious, and the conversation around the campfire grew more… shall we say, unvarnished, I would retire to my tent. Where I would try to sleep and fail.

But the fighting. Oh, the fighting.

First we did minimal drilling in one-on-one attack and defense methods. I still don’t feel I’ve got those down completely, but I’ve made a start.

“Live steel” combat is essentially fighting theater, kind of like professional wrestling except that the element of genuine competition remains. The mayhem is (mostly) simulated, but you don’t know who the winner will be beforehand. Part of the training is learning how to attack and defend, but a lot of it is learning how to do it safely. Many useful and potentially successful moves are prohibited because they’re just too dangerous. Our weapons, naturally, are blunted.

The great fun was the battles (seven warriors in all were present, so we had a wall of three against a wall of four). I “killed” Gary, the most fearsome Viking in our group (a decorated Vietnam Special Forces veteran) in the first battle. I suspect I succeeded because it never occurred to him to worry about me.

I “killed” two guys, I think, in the course of the fighting, and ended two or three battles still standing. I learned that I’m basically a defensive warrior, not bad at keeping alive but less aggressive than one might wish. Which surprises no one.

It felt great. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long, long time. I’m grateful to everybody who twisted my arm to get me to go down there, and I look forward to working out my frustrations this way frequently in the future.

Gotta go now. I need to stare at that picture some more.

Lars Walker

PW:Indigestible

2006-05-30T00:01:00.000-04:00

Also from the NY Times article on literary fiction, Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, states the bottom quarter of a publisher's list is "where much of the best writing is, the work of the odd, uncooperative, intractable, pigheaded authors who insist on seeing and saying things their own way and change the game in the process. The 'system' can only recognize what it's already cycled through. What's truly new is usually indigestible at first."

Tags: writing, books, publishing, writing

PW:Publishing the Literary Stuff

2006-05-30T00:00:00.000-04:00

What does it take to sell literary fiction? This NY Times articles reports the system from publishing house to bookseller is "impatient."

In a market dominated by the big chain stores, if a novel doesn't sell a healthy number of copies in the first two weeks after its publication, its chances of gaining longer-term momentum are slim.

"In the post-9/11 world, we've found it has, until very recently anyway, been more difficult than previously to get the common reader to take a chance on new writers," said Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, which publishes Jonathan Franzen and Nadine Gordimer, as well as Marilynne Robinson. "The pressures on literary books are growing, as an ever smaller number of books continues to sell more and more broadly."

I'm not a good test case for the market, because I'm a slow reader which contributes to being a slow buyer; but with books and movies I like, I don't want to run out at get them. Rarely do I feel strongly about a book or movie that I want to buy it soon after its release; I almost never act on that feeling. So booksellers are not serving me by demanding fast sellers, which is another reason I must rely on blogs for my literary understanding. [by way of Arts Journal again] - phil

Tags: books, bookselling, literary fiction, fiction, publishing

PW:Those Cartoons Again

2006-05-29T23:16:00.000-04:00

The June issue of Harper's Magazine reprints those inflammatory cartoons again with a few related one, and Canada's biggest bookseller pulls the issue from its racks. For a bit of context, The Globe and Mail newspaper reports that the founder and CEO of this bookseller pulled Mein Kampf off the shelves, calling it "hate literature." [by way of Arts Journal] - phil

PW:I Am Fierce; Hear Me Squeek!

2006-05-29T17:53:00.000-04:00

Somedays, I feel like this Siberian Tiger. I'm sure he's wise beyond his years and has something very important to shout about. [alternate link] - phil

PW: Dada Da Duh

2006-05-29T10:48:00.000-04:00

Dadaism was a nihilistic movement from the early 20th Century. “The literary manifestations of Dada were mostly nonsense poems—meaningless random combinations of words—which were read in public,” according to the Columbia Encyclopedia.

In honor of this foolishness, I submit this poem culled from the blogosphere. My methods were to choose the second word from the first entry on a blog found by clicking the eighth link in the blogroll of the preceding blog. I began with this blog. If I ran into a blog twice, I chose the sixteenth link in the blogroll. If a blog won’t load, I clicked randomly. After a bit, I changed my methods entirely (Why do some blog have not blogrolls?)

This bosses the suggests think Geographic
Washington dogg eu em gasolina
Companhia many book towards Down
Weman probably its USS Neverdock
To haven’t you're difference am curriculum

first

Inspiring, no?

Perhaps a blog mutation of Dadaist poetry is random linkage. Let me run with that thought a bit. I just searched for a good quote from Bertie Wooster and found this instead. One thing lead to another . . .

Double whammy for soybeans this year? Soybean growers are bracing for a soybean aphid population explosion
Tags: population
EFF: Fighting for Bloggers' Rights
Shell Refuses to Meet MEND's Demand
The thing about reading a Shakespeare play for the first time is that it all seems so familiar.
Underwear is everywhere, but mostly underneath!
Some very very big name authors (like Bill Clinton for example) don't have literary agents, they have a lawyer who negotiates for them and gets paid by the hour. MUCH cheaper, even at DC law firm billing rates.

PW:Have a Happy, Happy Day

2006-05-29T08:48:00.000-04:00

On this holiday weekend with the summer approaching and daily schedules potentially changing, Sherry offers a list of 100 happy, double plus good things to do. In case I sound too silly to be serious, get out the list. It has many great ideas. I know my girls would so enjoy building fairy houses they would do it inside and outside for a year.

Another time-filler I've enjoyed on occasion is Dadaist poetry. I don' t think poem will resemble you at all, but it can be fun to see the hints of meaning in random words. I'll post an example in a few minutes. - phil

PW: The Da Vinci Code Breaker, by James Garlow

2006-05-29T00:51:00.000-04:00

Even though I am predisposed to dislike The Da Vinci Code, reading James Garlow’s The Da Vinci Code Breaker has given me many more reasons. The book is an easy dictionary for names, places, and terms referenced in or related to Dan Brown’s novel. Though it appears to be written for the reader who is already familiar with the novel, I haven’t read it yet and didn’t find The Code Breaker less easy to understand.

I do have a copy the novel, because a colleague who enjoyed it pushed it my way. I’m not sure I will be able to handle working my way through it. After reading just the opening pages, I heard myself asking why would a professional assassin decide to shoot his victim in the stomach and the head instead of the head alone. It was his decision to make, the victim pinned to the floor in front of him, and he thinks he should use two bullets to kill him instead of one. Then the narrative makes a big deal about the evils of dying from a stomach shot.

James Garlow is more impressed with Brown’s writing, saying “his novelist skills are strong.” On Brown himself, Garlow says he seems “extremely bright.” But Brown attempts to pass off historical hoaxes and poor research as fact and many readers have believed him.

From the history recorded in The Code Breaker, I think Brown’s infamous “fact” page should read:

The Priory of Sion is a hoax imagined by French fascist Pierre Plantard in the mid-1950s. Plantard fabricated documents, Les Dossiers Secrets, and hid them within the Paris National Library, attempting to establish the fiction of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene and their bloodline which led to Plantard being in the family. Plantard admitted under oath that he created the Priory of Sion, but I, Dan Brown, think it’s a cool idea, so I am running with it in this novel.

Opus Dei is a lay-oriented Catholic organization founded by Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in 1928. It has 80,000 members around the world, and the founder wrote a book with some freaky statements in it (I think Roman Catholics are all flakes anyway), I’m making them the bad guys in this novel. Get a load of their expensive new headquarters in New York City.

I have not read Holy Blood, Holy Grail in preparation for this work, and I do not acknowledge a book by such a title exists. I think it's a hoax.

Garlow says that hosts asked him during interviews for his preceding book, Cracking Da Vinci’s Code co-authored with Peter Jones, why he was attacking a work of fiction. The reason is Brown claims that only the story is fiction. All the historic details, he says, are true. Garlow says the average reader can’t tell the fiction from the fact, which I can understand completely because so many tiny details are untrue.

Do you know who founded Paris? A Gallic tribe called Parisi. Brown gets that wrong.
Do you know how many glass panes are in Le Louvre Pyramide? It isn’t 666. The museum reports 673.
Brown describes La Pyramide Inversée as having a tip “suspended only six feet above the floor”; below it is “a miniature pyramid, only three feet tall.” The tips of these two structures are “almost touching.” Doesn’t a yard’s distance seems a little far for “almost touching”?
That miniature pyramid is described as coming “up through the floor,” but a close observer can see that it actually sits on the floor and can be moved aside for sweepers.
Leonardo Da Vinci did not name his famous painting Mona Lisa, so he wasn’t sending a message through the title. Brown says L’isa is an alternative name for Isis. The Code Breaker states that it isn’t. The English name Mona Lisa was given to the painting by a Da Vinci biographer many years after the artist’s death.
Leonardo made notes while painting The Last Supper in which he refers to the figure at Jesus’ right hand as a man, clearly from the artist’s context to be the Apostle John, not Mary Magdalene.

Details like these wouldn’t make up the text of many books if Brown hadn’t boasted his accuracy at the start of his novel and in interviews afterward. I don’t doubt he believes the hoax and that he thought he got many minor details right; but The Da Vinci Code and his other novels suffer, at least a little bit, from careless research.

But The Code Breaker reveals more disturbing errors or hoaxes which many people will assume to be true. Why make up stuff like this?

The Vatican, which Brown says ruled Christianity and suppressed the true accounts of Jesus’ life in the fourth century, existed only as a simple church at that time. It was not building its new power base, as Brown claims.
The books and letters which make up the New Testament were not declared God’s Word by a council. Most of them had been accepted by disciples of Jesus since the time they were first circulated.
Brown says English is a pure language, free from the corruption of the Vatican. This is idiotic. The English language comes to us from the German language, so wouldn't German be far more pure than it? Also, many English were imported from the Norman French.
Finally, in a section which makes me laugh from a literary perspective, main character Robert Langdon states the church burned five million women as witches over several centuries. The Code Breaker points to sources which record only 55,000 witch trials which resulted in executions and over 20% of the convicts were men. Many of these trials were done by common people, not the Catholic Church.

The Da Vinci Code Breaker calls itself “an easy-to-use fact checker,” and I agree. Not only does it include corrections to the novel, but it also describes why the Gnostic writings were rejected, how the Bible was assembled, and other writings or recordings on the issues distorted in The Da Vinci Code.

Tags: Da Vinci Code, dan brown, history, books, church history

PW: Review of The C.S. Lewis Chronicles, By Colin Duriez

2006-05-27T21:48:00.000-04:00

The latest biography from C.S. Lewis scholar Colin Duriez impresses me as a blog-style work. It does not have a flowing narrative which attempts to tell the story of Lewis’ life or, worse, attempts to reveal “the secret” of his success. The C.S. Lewis Chronicles, subtitled “The Indispensable Biography of the Creator of Narnia; Full of Little-Known Facts, Events and Miscellany,” has the feel of third-person diary.

Duriez offers many details from Lewis’ life in the chronological order they occurred with few contextual notes from the past or present. Each chapter is labeled with the years it covers, and after several paragraphs introducing those years, the biography flows according to the date. He includes plenty of historical context in each section, noting the deaths and births of pertinent individuals and events of that year, which may be valuable to literature students who need to be reminded no author writes in a vacuum.

The CSL Chronicles has other context too, lists mostly. For example, the January 31, 1919, entry notes: “This evening, upon invitation, Lewis joins a literary and debating society of the college, the Martlets, as secretary. Membership is limited to twelve.” For context, an explanation of the Martlets with a list of papers delivered by Lewis to the group is on the following page, including this note:

There was another but short-lived undergraduate society, called the ‘Inklings’; in the 1930s its name was transferred to the later famous circle of friends around Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis and Tolkien did attend the original undergraduate ‘Inklings,’ but only as invited dons.

Duriez leaves many details unwritten, perhaps an irritation to readers who already know a good bit about Lewis; but I think this biography is respectably complete. I know I’ve learned some things (but this is also my first Lewis biography to read). For instance, I was disturbed when, earlier this year, Lars referred to sadism in Lewis’ letters before 1918, but a note in The C.S. Lewis Chronicles suggests it is evidence of the impact of the abuse Lewis suffered while in boarding school under the care of madman. Such perversion was a part of his imagination as it were.

I recommend this small, fragmented biography to readers interested in Lewis or his Oxford friends. I think it would be especially useful to trivia fans. - phil

Tags: C.S. Lewis, narnia, biography, Inklings

PW:Excerpt from The C.S. Lewis Chronicles

2006-05-27T21:45:00.000-04:00

March 11 (Wed), 1936
Charles Williams receives his first letter from Lewis, in appreciation of his novel, The Place of the Lion. Lewis invites him to attend an Inklings meeting (the first recorded use of the name). Williams, who has been delighted by the proofs of The Allegory of Love, replies immediately: "If you had delayed writing another 24 hours our letters would have crossed. It has never before happened to me to be admiring an author of a book while he at the same time was admiring me. My admiration for the staff work of the Omnipotence rises every day. . . . I regard your book as practically the only one that I have ever come across, since Dante, that shows the slightest understanding of what this very peculiar identity of love and religion means. . . ."

Spring 1936
Lewis and Tolkien discuss writing time and space stories. Tolkien recalls in a letter [no. 294] that Lewis had one day remarked to him that since "there is too little of what we really like in stories" they ought to write some themselves. "We agreed that he should try space-travel and I should try time-travel. . . . I began an abortive book of time-travel of which the end was to be the presence of my hero in the drowning of Atlantis."

Tags: Charles Williams, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, authors, books, biography

PW:Silly Saturday Surveys

2006-05-27T10:44:00.000-04:00

I hope to blog a good bit today, though as usual it may turn out to be at the end of the day. In the meantime, I could dig up more sword imagery. Instead, I'll offer these Internet quizzes for you.

Many people ask me--they even approach me on the street--out of the blue, "What Stars Wars Character Do You Think You Would Be?" I always give them the same answer:

I am Qui-Gon Jinn
Overall, I'm a pretty well balanced person. But maybe I focus a little too much on the here and now.I should think about the future before it's too late.

Qui-Gon Jinn		68%
C-3PO		63%
R2-D2		58%
Lando Calrissian		58%
Han Solo		58%
Mace Windu		58%
Darth Vader		57%
Obi-Wan Kenobi		57%
Chewbacca		56%
Boba Fett		56%

(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)
Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Quiz

It may be the long cloak I always wear and the saber-like device I carry.

And on the theological side, bands of men in red capes often stop me to ask where I stand in their little theology survey. I think they're with the area lodge, but they never offer me any almond logs or parade tickets. The answer I give them is stand up:

I am a Reformed Evangelical. I take the Bible very seriously because it is God's Word. I hold to TULIP and am sceptical about the possibilities of universal atonement or resistible grace. The most important thing the Church can do is make sure people hear how they can go to heaven when they die. John Calvin is my man. I think the biggest problem with most churches is they make a big deal out of minor truths or half-truths.

Reformed Evangelical	86%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan	71%
Fundamentalist	68%
Neo orthodox	46%
Roman Catholic	36%
Charismatic/Pentecostal	36%
Emergent/Postmodern	29%
Modern Liberal	25%
Classical Liberal	21%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com
I found both of these quizzes on Gid's blog. [Let me also say officially in an authoritative way that I am proud of the fact that I have published this post 6-7 times. Hello, you wonder RSS readers!!]

PW: The Dane

2006-05-26T17:20:00.000-04:00

With Lars going to the Tivoli Festival this weekend, I submit this Medieval Danish style two-handed sword for your enjoyment. The Dane: a limited edition from Albion Swords, "a sword made for armoured fighting . . . very stiff, nasty and aggressive." There's only conceptual art available at this time.

PW:Christian Fiction in Print

2006-05-25T20:31:00.000-04:00

Mr. Bertrand links to the few print journals that publish Christian fiction and announces that he will be editing fiction submission for a new journal, called Relief, A Quarterly Christian Expression.

Speaking of journals, I plan to review a new one, called GrendelSong: a Fantasy Magazine of folklore and mythology after I receive the review copy of the first issue in a month or two. - phil

Tags: fantasy, magazines, short story

lw: There is nothing like a Dane

2006-05-25T20:17:00.000-04:00

Fie on wireless routers, for the time being. In my presumed capacity as an emancipated adult, homeowner and taxpayer, I declare the subject moot until after the holiday. The only thing I actually can’t do with the present configuration is access my DSL from my laptop, and I can live without that for a while. Especially since I don’t expect to use a computer over the weekend.

I’m taking a vacation day tomorrow and driving down to Elk Horn, Iowa for the Tivoli Festival. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Elk Horn before (it’s in southwest Iowa), but I gather it’s a community with a strong Danish heritage (there aren’t many in the U.S. Danes aren’t a major demographic in our diverse republic), and every year they celebrate their heritage with a Tivoli Fest celebration. (Tivoli, by the way, is the name of a famous amusement park in Copenhagen. It, in its turn, was named after a place in Italy of which I know little. Make that nothing.)

Being one-quarter Dane myself, I’ll probably fit in as well as most people present. I’m going down with the Viking Age Club to participate in a reenactment campout. I shall sleep in a Viking tent, rejoicing in roughing it just like my ancestors.

Except that my ancestors didn’t have air mattresses.

We'll be the guests of Skjaldborg, another Viking group based in Nebraska. Skjaldborg, unlike our mob, has a strong emphasis on “live steel” combat, and they’ve promised to give us some opportunity for training.

I look forward to this. No doubt I’ll get hurt (being me, I’ll probably hurt myself), but that’s OK. If I come away with a dueling scar, so much the better.

A weekend of hearty male companionship and sword-swinging may be just what I need. Heaven knows I need something.

Have a good Memorial Day holiday. Stop in if you're in the Elk Horn area. I'll be selling books, if I'm still conscious.

Lars Walker

PW:Brought to You by General Electric

2006-05-24T23:26:00.000-04:00

Also in the Haaretz.com interview referenced below, Raveh Sagi states:

I have an idea for an initiative: I would like to see financial corporations or large industrial firms adopt an author. Let Elite or Strauss or the Israel Electric Corporation be involved in book publishing, even if it's a one-time grant to authors. Like sculpture by an Israeli artist in the lobby of a large high-tech firm - they'll sign on a book that's published.

Anything wrong with that idea? Anything right with it? - phil

Tags: fiction, writers, authors

PW: Basic Evil

2006-05-24T23:11:00.000-04:00

Raveh Sagi, a new writer in Israel, writes about the Holocaust from the common German's perspective, whom he casts as a victim: "There is a tendency to think the Nazis were monsters; when a father murders his daughter and buries her in the forest, he has to be a monster. He can't be like us, because if he is like us, it means we are also harboring such evil."

But he is like us, he says, and we do harbor similar evil. "You can't separate the Holocaust from the circumstances in which it occurred. But there is a basic evil in man, and, in my opinion, what makes us human are our constant efforts to block this evil." [by way of Nextbook.org]

Tags: writers, authors, monsters, evil, humanity, Holocaust

PW:The Machine Within You

2006-05-24T22:17:00.000-04:00

Several months ago, Steve Talbott wrote:

During 1994-1995 I wrote a book suggesting that the emerging culture of the Internet was infected by a massive and potentially disastrous confusion between our full human capacities and the technical capabilities of the new digital machinery. It's not that the technical capabilities had nothing to do with us. Quite the opposite. The point was that they lived first of all within us: we had to conceive the computer and be capable of thinking like a computer before we could build one. And that's exactly where the danger lay. This thinking and the machine it spawned were extremely one-sided expressions of ourselves. If we continued investing our energies in such one-sidedness, allowing the rapid spread of digital machinery continually to reinforce our own imbalance, then (so I argued) we would eventually descend to the level of our machines without even realizing it. And we would mistake our own descent for a glorious ascent of the machine to a human and then a superhuman level.

The ultimate threat, I claimed in The Future Does Not Compute, was not the operation of the machine "out there" in the physical world, but rather the ongoing amplification and imperial aggrandizement of the machine within us. This is what makes the externalized technology so extremely dangerous.

lw: My life is on hold

2006-05-24T20:55:00.000-04:00

I'm in Wireless Router Purgatory.

Lars Walker

PW:Praise for Ann Tatlock

2006-05-24T12:40:00.000-04:00

I just noticed this comment in a Publishers Weekly review of Ann Tatlock's Things We Once Held Dear, published this year: "Tatlock is one of Christian fiction's better wordsmiths, and her lovely prose reminds readers why it is a joy to savor her stories." That's the kind of writer I'm looking for. I'm going to have to pick up Things We Once Held Dear. - phil

Tags: Ann Tatlock, fiction, writers, authors, Christianity

lw: Klavan on Oprah, Mother Teresa and the Da Vinci Code

2006-05-23T19:00:00.000-04:00

Bubbling as I've been with breathless fanboy enthusiasm over Andrew Klavan lately, I was delighted to see this article over at Libertas today, in which he confesses faith in Jesus Christ.

That, no doubt, would explain why none of the retail bookstores in my area carry a single one of his novels.

Lars Walker

PW: Reforming Coffee's Governing Policies

2006-05-23T12:24:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Government hopes to reform the international laws of coffee trading. According to this report:

The reforms . . . would prioritise environmental sustainability in coffee cultivation, strengthen the contribution of the private sector and help small producers manage the results of "unpredictable market conditions".

Coffee export prices have fallen more than 65 percent below historic averages in recent years, mainly because of over-supply.

The way I understand it, a country like Vietnam can flood the market with lousy coffee, make a little money, and force poor Mexican farmers to sell their beans far below cost. If the farmers can't make enough on their crop to buy food for themselves, they will consider risking their lives by crossing the U.S. southern border in the hope of finding a decent job.

Everything touches everything else, doesn't it?

In case you are wondering, the U.S. is the world's largest coffee importer.

Tags: coffee, border, mexico, immigration

PW:Get Caught Reading

2006-05-22T21:55:00.000-04:00

May is "Get Caught Reading Month" from the Association of American Publishers.
Some readers are confessing their current titles over on this thread.

Tags: books, reading, fun, literacy

lw: No news isn't necessarily bad news

2006-05-22T21:51:00.000-04:00

Since I've been going all drama queen with the Black Dog and all, I felt I ought to just pop in to say that I've been on the phone with tech support for my wireless router all evening. That, and not the B.D., is why the feast of reason and the flow of soul from my corner has been squelched tonight.

I bought the book Wireless Networking for Dummies a while back.

What does it say about you when you can't comprehend a book written for dummies?

It's a rhetorical question. I know the answer.

Lars Walker

PW:Fantasy in Modern Setting

2006-05-22T12:59:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I think of how traditional fantasy elements could work in an modern day setting or how new wizardry and ancient weaponry could be woven into a story set in modern America without being cheesy or focusing on the dark side. I don't want vampire romances or werewolves as heros or horror stories in general. I probably want what's called magical realism.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Are stories like this on the shelf at my neighborhood bookstore?

Tags: fantasy, books, fiction

PW: BookExpo

2006-05-22T00:02:00.000-04:00

John Freeman of the National Book Critics Circle comments on last weekend's BookExpo America.

Steve Leary, a librarian in Washington D.C., reports on an abrupt abortion of a panel discussion entitled, "The Best American Fiction Since 1980: Results and Analysis from the New York Times Book Review Survey."

Also the President of the American Library Association gave suggestions to the nation's libraries, one of which being to replace old books with eye-appealing new ones. I know this has to be done at some point, but is she suggesting this needs to be a budget priority?

MORE: The folks at First Book have posted some photos of convention, kids, and authors. If you have any doubts that the cover sells the book, walk the floor with 100,000 books around you. Of course, the cover isn't the only seller, but I think it's the primary one in a place like this.

Tags: BookExpo, books

PW:Can a Novel Be the Best of All?

2006-05-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

On Conversational Reading, I noticed this opinion on ranking books in order to designate one as the best from a professional critic who did not participate in the NY Times Best of the Last 25 Years list. Laura Miller says: "Ultimately, novels are so diverse that once they attain a certain level of quality, they really can't be meaningfully ranked against each other."

I think I agree, but I don't think it's a part of me yet, maybe because the whole question is out of my league.

PW:Nominated SOB

2006-05-22T00:00:00.000-04:00

Thank you, M.E. Strauss, for declaring Brandywine Books a "successful and outstanding blog." Naturally, I agree.

PW: An Alternate List

2006-05-21T22:32:00.000-04:00

Perhaps you are already aware, but in case you aren't, Book of the Day is calling for an alternate list of best books in the last 25 years. She asks anyone who blogs about books to nominate and vote. I think Toni Morrison's Beloved is a good choice from the NY Times list and maybe should be the winner of a list like this, but for other potentials I nominated Walker Percy's The Second Coming and Marilynne Robinson's Gilead.

What do you think?

lw: The Abraham Lincoln Code

2006-05-19T21:23:00.000-04:00

Sorry about not posting yesterday. I’ve been having connection problems.

(That’s actually a moral lie, though it’s technically true. I have been having connection problems, but they started after my normal blogging time last night. They did, however, help delay this post.)

(And anyway, I warned you that the Black Dog might be interfering with my posting. Said Dog was in fact the operative cause of my silence.)

Imagine that you’ve picked up a novel about the Civil War. It’s a conspiracy novel. Its premise is that Abraham Lincoln was actually a black man, passing as white. He engineered the Civil War in order to set his people free. But this truth was suppressed by the Federal Government, which was made up of slaveholders who could not endure for the truth to be told. A small group of southern Abolitionists kept the truth alive, but have been persecuted by the pro-slavery Federal Government ever since that time.

“Nonsense,” you’d say. “It was the Federal Government that fought to abolish slavery. The South defended it, by and large.”

But let a thousand years go by, and people might have forgotten enough history to enable them to swallow such a premise.

That, it seems to me, is the sort of thing that’s going on with The Da Vinci Code.

When you run through a list of the reasons modern people hate Christianity, what usually comes up? A few top choices are:

Christians are too exclusive. They think they’re the only ones who’ll be saved.
Christians are anti-Semitic.
Christians think sex is bad

G. K. Chesterton once complained somewhere (I can’t find the reference just now) that it’s rather hard that the world continually accuses the church of teaching things it actually condemned, while at the same time criticizing it for condemning the people who actually taught those things. The Da Vinci Code is a perfect realization of that Chestertonian paradox.

There was a group in Christian history that restricted salvation to a very small group, and hated Jews, and condemned sex as disgusting and evil.

But that group wasn’t the Christian church.

It was the Gnostics.

The same people Dan Brown would have us believe were easygoing, tolerant humanists, almost identical to California New Agers.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the course of some quick-and-dirty research this week:

The Gnostics were not the original, pristine Christians. The Gnostic belief system (which covers a lot of pretty diverse ground) predates Christianity. When Christianity came along, with the extremely attractive figure of Jesus at its center, people who already thought gnostically joined the church and brought these ideas in.

Despite the popularity of Jesus as a personality, many early Christians (especially Gentiles with philosophical pretensions) found the Christian community an uncongenial fellowship, full of people “not our kind.”

The worst thing about it (they felt) was that it was full of Jews. Jews have rarely been popular in history. They've almost always been considered too clannish, too judgmental, and too narrow-minded. The Jews in the Christian church insisted that Jesus was the Son of the God of the Old Testament, and that He had died and risen again as a blood sacrifice for our sins.

“Disgusting,” said the Gnostics. “It’s the worst kind of blasphemy to think that the true God, the ultimate Reality, could have had anything to do with the dirty, smelly, rotting world we live in. God is pure, and untouched by the corruption of our world. This world (if it exists at all in any real sense) was not created by the true God. It was either created by a demon or by some lower-level spiritual being. And Christ, who is the Logos, the Word of God, clearly could not have had a real body. He was a pure spirit. He only looked like a real man. He didn’t die on the cross, and He didn’t rise again. Salvation is not found in His blood, but in learning certain secret teachings which we have been able to discover.”

They taught that only a small, elite group of people were capable of enlightenment. Everybody else was damned, and deserved to be.

The God of the Old Testament, most Gnostics believed, was actually some kind of demon. The snake did a good act in tempting Adam and Eve to rebel against Him, and Cain was a hero.

As for sex, most Gnostics were ascetics, teaching that all sex (especially sex for procreation) was sinful.

A few Gnostics were libertines, reasoning that if the material body was nothing, it didn’t matter what you did with it.

None of the Gnostics considered sex holy.

So here you have it:

Exclusivity: The Gnostics had it.
Anti-Semitism: The Gnostics reeked of it.
Rejection of sex: The Gnostics were famous for it.

So naturally Dan Brown celebrates them as champions of tolerance and sacred sex.

Reports on the film say that its central argument is that the church suppressed the truth that Jesus had children by Mary Magdalene, because that would have demonstrated that He was “mortal,” and thus proved all their doctrines about Him to be a lie.

You see the problem? The Church didn’t deny that Jesus was “mortal” in the sense of being capable of impregnating a woman. We teach that He was “man, born in the world of the substance of His mother, perfect God and perfect man, with reasonable soul and human flesh…” (Athanasian Creed). We've always believed He was capable of having a child. We just have no evidence that He ever did.

Pop quiz: Who actually believed He couldn’t have a child?

Answer: It starts with a G.

Lars Walker

lw: May 17th 2006

2006-05-17T19:41:00.000-04:00

Today is Syttende Mai, the Norwegian national holiday (not, as I think I explained a year ago, Norwegian Independence Day, but Norwegian Constitution Day).

I set my personal Norwegian flag on a pole out in front of my house today. It continues to fly as I write.

This is the actual reason why I bought the house. Not for the living and storage space. Not for the investment equity. Not in order to have a place to entertain visitors. I wanted a place where I could put out my Norwegian flag on Syttende Mai.

I've had the flag since the mid-80s, and in all those years I've never had a decent place to fly it. It was the psychological pressure of my frustration about that that pushed me over the edge and impelled me to take the irrational step of buying this place.

Now I'm satisfied. I'm ready for the other shoe to drop, for the arrival of the financial blow that will force me to sell the house and move back into a small apartment. Probably smaller than my old one (though more expensive). A serious crack has just appeared in the retaining wall that keeps my yard from burying my neighbor's driveway, and I'm confident it will turn out to be a repair project on a Federal scale.

Oh, by the way, I forgot yesterday the first Andrew Klavan novel I read (actually it was written under the Keith Peterson pseudonym)--The Scarred Man. This is a psychological thriller with one of the best hooks I've ever read.

I love a great "book hook." Perhaps my favorite is the beginning of The Man Who Wasn't There by Roderick MacLeish (a much underappreciated novelist). That book (as I recall--I don't have a copy) began with the main character, who was something of a celebrity, being recognized by a stranger sitting beside him on a plane. Instead of admitting to his identity, he played a trick he liked to play in such situations, claiming to be his own (non-existent) non-famous twin, whose story he made up on the spot.

The next morning he got up and read in the paper that this imaginary twin brother had been killed in a plane crash.

That's a great book hook.

But the hook in The Scarred Man is almost as good.

Michael North is a young New York reporter who accepts an invitation to spend Christmas in Connecticut with his boss. There he meets the boss's daughter, Susannah, and falls hopelessly in love in about a nanosecond.

To entertain themselves, the party members agree to tell ghost stories (I thought of you here, Phil). Michael makes up a story on the spur of the moment, telling a tale of a murderous, undead psychopath with a scar down the center of his face.

Susannah goes hysterical, shouting "Stop it! What are you trying to do to me!" She flees back to school before he can discuss it with her.

Later, when he drives up to Susannah's college to talk to her, he pulls into the entrance and sees, in his headlights--the scarred man. When he finds Susannah, she tells him she's been having nightmares about this man all her life.

The great thing is, this isn't a supernatural novel.

Lars Walker

Tags: Andrew Klavan, thriller, books, fiction, author, book hook, Roderick MacLeish

PW:The Day No One Read a Book

2006-05-17T12:53:00.000-04:00

Author Brenda Coulter comments on the report of a day when readership will be far below the level of published books, that is, "Authorgeddon."

In related news, here's a column from a "video game addict." He says he would rather play Call of Duty 2 than watch most movies or TV. Of course, new technology has some disadvantages, such as live audio from "bozos with microphones."

PW:Publicity

2006-05-17T12:35:00.000-04:00

Apparently other lit-bloggers have been receiving new invitations for review books and press releases like I have. I thought they had been getting a steady stream of them already, and I was just wading into the flow. As the profile for Brandywine Books rises, I would think down-and-out publicists and editors in New York, Chicago, and Ringgold, GA, have our name on their lips at least once a . . . um, a week, maybe . . . probably having seen our URL scrawled on bathroom stalls in the Hiltons and Barnes & Nobles and like places. We spare no expense on our advertising campaign.

Have you received more invitations from publicists recently? Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network asked a publicist about these "cold call emails." The answer: it's a challenge to respectably promote the books you love in a world of hype. - phil

lw: Grand Klavan

2006-05-16T21:11:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday I stopped in at my local used book store to pick up another novel by Andrew Klavan (of whom more below). As I stood in line to pay for my selection, the store owner asked a customer (apparently a friend), “Do you read Danish?” He said no.

So I said, “I read Danish.” She handed me an old paperback volume called Romaner og Galilæer, by a German named Muller, translated into Norwegian (not Danish, though the written languages weren’t far apart back then) published in 1929. When it was my turn at the counter, I informed her that the title meant Romans and Galileans, and that it was a novel about the time of Christ. I gave her my card and said she could contact me if she needed more help.

Today, as I was proceeding with my great Archive Project at work, I picked up a pile of small volumes, and what did I find among them but Romaner og Galilæer?

A remarkable coincidence. Signifying nothing.

I merely note it for the record.

Back in the 90s I discovered an excellent mystery writer named Keith Peterson. His novels about reporter John Wells were exciting and smart, but the thing I really loved about them was that Peterson created characters I could really care about. I think I’ve said this before (and I’m sure I’ll say it again) but sympathetic characters are the thing I most require in a book.

Then Peterson just disappeared. (Actually there were a couple more Peterson books, but I missed them). I looked wistfully now and then at my John Wells novels, which I’d hung on to.

Recently I did a web search on Keith Peterson and made a wonderful discovery. Keith Peterson was a nom de plume for Andrew Klavan, the big thriller writer.

That took me to the used bookstore, and… wow. I mean, wow.

I like thrillers, and I have a short list of excellent authors whose books I watch for on a regular basis. I feel tiny but genuine joy when they’re "new in paperback."

But none of them knows his craft like Andrew Klavan.

Klavan grabs you by the throat, shoves you into his car, throttles it up to 120 miles an hour, and ignores the stoplights as he carries you with him, terrified in the passenger seat(rather like the actual experience of one character in True Crime). Just to keep your attention, he makes sure he has your firstborn child in the back seat, with no seatbelt. I’ve never really found any book un-put-downable in a literal sense, but Klavan comes close.

Not for Klavan the barely believable male fantasy-figure hero, the Travis McGee or the Lucas Davenport. His heroes are very much like you and me (or worse). Steve Everett, the reporter hero of True Crime, works in St. Louis because he lost his New York job for sleeping with the boss’s daughter. He drinks too much and smokes too much, and he’s now sleeping with his current boss’s wife. His marriage (not surprisingly) is rocky, and he’s not doing very well as a father to his little son. When he realizes that the death row inmate he’s been assigned to interview may very well be innocent, he has only one day to find evidence to save the man’s life. He breaks all the rules and many traffic laws in what looks from the beginning like a doomed attempt.

Dr. Nathan Conrad, the hero of Don’t Say a Word, is, to put it plainly, a wimp. He’s a skinny and balding psychiatrist with a bad knee and a bad eye. When his daughter is kidnapped, he’s forced to find a clue in the mind of a female patient, and in the end his intelligence and his love for his family are the only weapons he has against enemies who are genuinely, appallingly evil.

The word “evil” is important here. Klavan knows there is real evil in the world. His sympathy for his characters doesn’t keep him from making moral judgments on them. We may all have our flaws, but there is a line between darkness and light, and we all choose the side on which we stand.

This is a kind of “nuance” that liberal Hollywood doesn’t comprehend. I haven’t seen the movie versions of either True Crime or Don’t Say a Word, but the reviews I've read indicate that the moviemakers couldn’t grasp Klavan’s moral vision and fell, inevitably, into their own stereotypes.

In True Crime (the novel), for instance, the condemned man the hero tried to save was a white man who'd been railroaded because the County Attorney needed a sacrificial lamb to quiet complaints about the percentage of blacks on Death Row. That was one nuance too many for the moviemakers. They changed the prisoner to a black man.

The movie version of Don’t Say a Word starred Michael Douglas. That was the first mistake. Right there they sacrificed Dr. Conrad’s Everyman quality. There’s no surprise when Michael Douglas fights the bad guys.

The cop in that book was a big, fat, flatulent Irishman, lecherous and slightly corrupt. But when the chips were down, he turned out to be just the guy who was needed in the situation.

In the movie they turned him into a Hispanic woman.

Need I say more?

Andrew Klavan is a conservative, and he blogs now and then at Libertas blog. I don’t know what his religious beliefs are. He wrote a novel once (Son of Man) that sounds blasphemous. Ordinarily I wouldn’t forgive that in an author (Shoot, I abandoned Ed McBain forever after one crack about pro-lifers in one of the 87^th Precinct novels).

But I’m sticking with Klavan.

I almost have no choice.

Lars Walker

Tags: Andrew Klavan, thriller, books, fiction, author, Keith Peterson, True Crime

PW: A Bibliolexicon

2006-05-16T21:00:00.000-04:00

Danielle of A Work in Progress notes a list of terms for book-related habits or emotions:

Bibliobibule--One who reads too much
Biblioclast--One who tears the pages from or otherwise destroys books
Bibliodemon--A book fiend or demon
Bibliognoste--One who is knowledgeable about editions, colophons, printers, and all the minutiae of books
Bibliographe--One who describes books
Biblioklept--One who steals books
Bibliolater--One who worships books

That's the first seven as a teaser, so go to her blog for the rest. While I know I am a bibliophile, I wonder if I am something of a bibliomane and maybe even a bit bibliophobic. Why can't things be simple?

PW: Related to Link Leak Virus

2006-05-15T23:25:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, I lost my internet access at critical moments of free time which spanned the gaps between shepherding my little family, making coffee cake for a Sunday School snack, making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for another snack option as well as part of the reception food at the ballet recital this evening (my little, tutu-clad girls are the cutest things), a few errands including a birthday gift purchase for the three year old, and reading the exciting parts of L.B. Graham's Beyond the Summerland. Though I saw that M.E. Strauss had linked to BwB as a "Link Leak Virus," I could not respond right away, though I was prepared. Thank you, M.E. Let me mark up a few links myself found during a recent and reckless blog browse.

under odysseus appears to be blogging through the trials in Homer's Iliad using a modern voice.
Bubbles in my Head blogs on writing and literature matters
Toni McGee Causey blogs at electric mist and has a three-book deal with St. Martin's Press to work through.

In related news, a new site, Blogs with a Face, hopes to build the blogger-reader relationship by linking to blogs through images. They picked BwB to one of their first 200 or so links. What do you think of this idea? BwB is in the fourth row on the right. - phil

lw: Sort of like Jurassic Park, except smaller and more wrinkled

2006-05-15T20:00:00.000-04:00

Before long you may be able to enjoy the same kind of dates that Jesus ate. Scripps-Howard reports that a seed from Masada in Israel, which had lain dormat for 2,000 years has been successfully sprouted by scientists. These date palms have not been around since the Romans destroyed them all following the Jewish revolt.

This fills me with hope.

Even after 2,000 years, a guy can still get a date.

(Ba-rump-bump.)

(Hat tip: Mirabilis.)

I do not call for an organized boycott of the Da Vinci Code movie. The last thing I want to see is an anti-Brown organization with news coverage and marches and demonstrations, etc. That just provides free advertising.

I merely urge you not to see the movie, all on your own. To find out about the story, read the book. But don't buy it. Borrow it from a library. Better yet, buy a Christian book about the book, like The Da Vinci Codebreaker.

That way neither Dan Brown nor Howard/Hanks will get any of your money.

A guy called Michael Medved's show today and said, "Hey, the movie won't change my beliefs. It's fiction. It's not in the history section at the bookstore. Why get upset about it?"

The reason I (for my part) get upset is because modern people don't know general history, let alone Christian history. When Dan Brown claims, at the beginning of his book, that all the historical facts described are true, people tend to believe him.

If they'd learned any history in school (or in their churches) this wouldn't be a problem. But they haven't.

One of the more aggravating points in the whole controversy (from my point of view) is Brown's claim (according to what I've read) that the Gnostics represented a form of Christianity that emphasized Christ as a human being, and one that was more friendly to sex.

This is nonsense on an extension ladder. This is like saying that the Nazis were a noted Zionist group, or that the English Puritans were famous for their near-fanatical devotion to the Pope.

The Gnostics believed (to varying degrees) that physical matter was evil. They believed bodies were evil. They believed Jesus was a spirit. They believed sex was bad, and women foul.

Marvin Olasky provides a good interview about Gnosticism with historian Peter Jones at World Magazine today. I'll be doing research and saying more later on this week.

Lars Walker

PW: Best American Fiction

2006-05-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

NY Times names Toni Morrison's Beloved as the best work of American fiction in the last twenty-five years. I'm not qualified to answer questions like this. I have read Beloved though, and I enjoyed her style, story, everything but the sex.

I see that the Grumpy OB from across the sea doesn't approve, and he links to other big lit-bloggers who likewise complain. "I really cannot be bothered with this. Especially when I find that one of the top dozen or so is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Anyone who thinks that Toole's book is one of the 'best' books of any period longer than three days, in a bad week, is just plain certifiable, and no two ways about it."

Over at the Literary Saloon, editor M.A. Orthofer notes that he reads about 200 books a year, which makes 5,000 books over the past 25 years, "but I've read a mere two of the titles that received multiple votes."

Is this how the classics are determined, the right people casting their votes? - phil

Tags: fiction, books, best books, American

PW: DV Code Not Changing Many Minds

2006-05-15T12:49:00.000-04:00

Barna Research reports that only 5% of Da Vinci Code readers claim the book changed their beliefs or perspectives. One our of four readers said the book was valuable to their spiritual growth (compare that to the same response by three out of four readers of Anne Rice's Christ the Lord). George Barna said that many survey participants said The Da Vinci Code confirmed what they already believed.

Tags: Da Vinci Code, dan brown, Jesus, books, fiction