All posts by Lars Walker

Fiction, Poetry, Reviews

‘The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun,’ by J.R.R. Tolkien

Leave a comment

When I wrote yesterday that my life was “full of Viking stuff again,” I neglected to tell the whole of the tale. I was also finishing up my reading of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun.

I find it difficult to get enough objective distance on this book to make any guess as to how the public at large will receive it. For me, and some of my friends, this book is a gift. All our lives we’ve heard of the young scholars Tolkien and Lewis sitting in their rooms at Oxford, reading Eddaic poems to each other in the original Icelandic (this was how the famous Inklings began). Yet in their published work, both men have surprisingly little to say on the matter. Tolkien gives us echoes in The Lord of the Rings, although those elements are generally as much Anglo-Saxon as Norse. And Lewis seems to have shed his passion for Northernness along with his atheism, as if he’d put aside childish things.

But here we have a genuinely Norse work from Tolkien himself. It’s not a translation. It’s an original poem, drawing on varied sources. The original poem he’s trying to refashion, found in the Codex Regius manuscript in Iceland (where she shares honors with the Flatey Book I mentioned yesterday), is interrupted in the middle by the loss of a whole signature of pages. There are other versions of the story extant, both prose and poetry, but they vary widely in quality and consistency. Tolkien determined to do his own version, in which he’d try to work out contradictions between the traditions.

The result was very pleasing to me. Tolkien has definite views about Old Norse Eddaic poetry, and in his view it’s a very different thing from the Anglo-Saxon kind he translated in Beowulf. Continue reading ‘The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun,’ by J.R.R. Tolkien →

Uncategorized

More Viking stuff. More or less.

Leave a comment

My life is suddenly full of Viking stuff again. I just got a commission to translate, not a book, but a brochure, for a Norwegian foundation devoted to the translation and publication of a complete edition of the Flatey Book, the largest and best preserved saga manuscript we have from Iceland, and incidentally one of the most beautiful medieval illuminated manuscripts in existence. The publishers are my old friends at Saga Bok publishers, with whom I’ve worked before. It gives me a wholly undeserved sense of importance to be involved in such a project at any level.

Also it occurred to me to share the movie trailer below, a soon-to-come Norwegian adventure film about the Birkebeiners, a legendary Norwegian rebel army that overthrew a king of questionable pedigree to replace him with another king of questionable pedigree. The new king was a baby whom two Birkebeiners (the name means “birchlegs,” because in the early phases they were sometimes so poor they had to wrap their legs in birch bark for lack of warmer leggings) rescued by carrying him over the mountains by ski.

The trailer, alas, is in Norwegian, but I think you can follow the sense of it. This isn’t strictly a Viking story, as it takes place in the 12th Century, after all the pillage and plunder stuff had been pretty much worked out.

Personally I’ve always been ambivalent about the Birkebeiners, because I like to imagine that one of my ancestors might have been a leader of the opposition party, the Baglers. But, like any modern Norwegian, I imagine I had ancestors on both sides.

I have no idea if there are plans to release this movie in English. I just do these things to frustrate you.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Laramie Holds the Range,’ by Frank H. Spearman

Leave a comment

I so enjoyed Whispering Smith, which I reviewed here, that I picked up another Frank H. Spearman western, Laramie Holds the Range. It’s very much of a formula with Smith in terms of characters, but the plot is quite different.

The background of the story seems to be the Johnson County War, that long (1889 to 1893) Wyoming conflict between big ranchers and small ranchers (or, as the big ranchers called them, “rustlers”). The facts of that brutal struggle are relentlessly depressing to anyone looking for romance in the history of the real west, and its final resolution is entirely unsatisfactory. Therefore many writers have attempted over the years to re-cast it along more chivalric lines. Fine books have been written from the big ranchers’ side (The Virginian), and the small ranchers’ side (Shane). Author Spearman more or less splits the difference in Laramie Holds the Range. Its improbably named hero, Jim Laramie, avoids taking sides, seeing some wrong in both. But in a pinch he helps the small ranchers, because they’ve been dealt a bad hand and have been treated badly by the rich men.

Jim Laramie is the son of an early settler in the Falling Wall region, near the town of Sleepy Cat. The area is known as a nest of rustlers, but no one has ever seriously accused Jim of being one of them. Nevertheless, men working for “Barb” (not, I’m pretty sure, short for Barbara) Doubleday, the big rancher in those parts, tear down Jim’s fence one day. Jim travels to Sleepy Cat to confront Barb, fully aware it could mean his death, or both their deaths.

But he never sees him on that occasion. Instead he meets Kate Doubleday, Barb’s daughter, newly arrived from the east. She showed up unannounced one day, her father having been unaware of her existence, and since he didn’t kick her out she took up residence at his ranch. Jim is smitten with her immediately, and decides a) not to kill Barb for the time being, and b) to court Kate. This proves difficult, as she, based on her father’s opinion, considers him next thing to a rustler and an enemy. The story proceeds to tell how Jim overcomes killers, bad weather, and a cloud of lies to remain true to his friends, hang on to his land, and get the girl.

Great fun. Slightly old-fashioned writing, but Spearman knew how to build characters, and told an entertaining tale. Jim Laramie is essentially a taller version of Whispering Smith, but I’m perfectly OK with that.

Reviews

‘Sherlock’ and the Case of the Jumped Shark

Leave a comment

I knew better. But I was seduced.

OK, let me rephrase that.

I had decided, at the end of the last season of BBC’s Sherlock, to stop watching it. I’d liked the first season very much. The second season I liked quite a lot. The third season alienated me. The production went from being a detective show (featuring lively riffs on the original Conan Doyle stories) into being a soap opera about the friendship of two men. I was particularly irritated by the condescending attitude I thought I detected toward the original material. As if Doyle had been waiting for the 21st Century for someone to inform him what he’d really been writing about.

But then they offered a Christmas special, which aired last night on PBS, and they did it in period, set about 1895, with Holmes smoking a pipe again and Watson sporting a handlebar mustache. I couldn’t resist that, could I?

Well, I couldn’t. And I guess it’s just as well. It was only 90 minutes, and that was long enough to put me off the series permanently. Continue reading ‘Sherlock’ and the Case of the Jumped Shark →

Uncategorized

Viking stuff on a winter night

Leave a comment

Andrew Lawler, at National Geographic, writes what I consider a very fine article about slavery in the Viking Age. For years I’ve been arguing against the current fashion for portraying the Vikings as peaceable but misunderstood businessmen. That’s both historically obtuse and insulting to a culture that took pride in its prowess with arms. I’m particularly annoyed by the trope that says, “Well, you know, most of them weren’t warriors but peaceable tradesmen.” I suppose you could say that, if you consider the slave trade a peaceable occupation.

“This was a slave economy,” said Neil Price, an archaeologist at Sweden’s Uppsala University who spoke at a recent meeting that brought together archaeologists who study slavery and colonization. “Slavery has received hardly any attention in the past 30 years, but now we have opportunities using archaeological tools to change this.”

Of course the Vikings were hardly alone in trading and keeping slaves. Other cultures that did much the same thing were… pretty much everybody.

I just get annoyed by the “peaceable tradesmen” line.

In other Viking news, there’s new Russian film that looks very intriguing:

This is an epic about Vladimir the Great, who made the Russians Christian. Like all great historical epics it’s probably stuffed with baloney, but it sure looks good. I can find some fault with the costumes, but this trailer just sings. It could be the good Viking movie we’ve waited for so long. Hope it comes out soon with English subtitles.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Stateline,’ by Dave Stanton

Leave a comment

Dan Reno (pronounced Renno) is a maintenance alcoholic who works for a detective agency whose penny-pinching owner he despises. But he gets along well enough with his ex-wife to be invited to a family wedding, that of one of her relations to the son of a business tycoon in Reno (the town). The wedding never happens though, because the groom is murdered the night before, during the bachelor party. His grieving father hires Dan on the spot to find out who’s responsible. $100,000 to identify the killer, then leave the rest to him.

Dan takes the job, and gradually learns that the dead man was not the person people thought he was. He had been involved with some very unsavory, dangerous people, and Dan is soon struggling to save his life – and that of his cop friend Cody, who comes to help him – in the dangerous mountain country around Reno. Organized crime and corrupt cops both want them to back off, and are willing to kill them if they don’t get the hint.

That’s the premise of Stateline, a throwback to classic hardboiled formulas in a contemporary setting. The book grew on me. Dan seems a little sleazy at the beginning of the story, but as we get to know him he displays some decent qualities, especially in his treatment of women. I grew to like him. The book, in spite of all the vice it describes, has a moral center.

The writing in Stateline is sometimes spotty. I was put off by some infelicities in the style. But it wasn’t bad enough to make me delete the book from my Kindle unfinished (it’s free for Kindle, at least this month). I might mention that I’m reading the sequel now, and the quality of the prose has improved.

Not a bad novel. Cautions are in order for language, drugs, sexual situations, and some serious violence.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Never Taste Death,’ by Hannah Rose Williams

Leave a comment

Full disclosure: Hannah Rose Williams, the author of this book, is a former student at the school where I’m librarian. She sent me a free copy of her latest novel for review. I’m not sure we’ve ever actually met, but I need to be up front about the connection before offering this review.

Having finished Never Taste Death, I discovered that it’s the second book in a series. That explains a lot. Although the writing impressed me in many ways, much more than many self-published novels I’ve seen, I often felt like a spectator at a ball game without a score card. So although I’m reviewing the second book, I recommend getting the first one, A World Awaits, if you decide to get into this series.

The setting seems to be the future, where things have changed a lot but there are still many Christians. Some kind of interdimensional breach has occurred, and now humans inhabit various dimensions, sharing them with beings something like elves (they are short and have green skin, and can travel through earth). Various groups of humans and elves are at war with each other. Many humans are not Christians, and many elves are. The main character, Carver Winchester, is a genetic mix. When we meet him he is working in some kind of labor center, working off a debt. Then he gets a plea for help from an old acquaintance, and he deserts through an interdimensional portal. His family follows him, resulting in various adventures and a tangle of story lines that converge in the end.

I was impressed with the character development and dialogue in Never Taste Death, most of the time. There are a lot of discussions about religion, in which the author works out her essential arguments about God. The discussions are pretty well written (generally), but I thought there were probably too many of them for one book. You should be warned that the author has decided to employ realistic dialogue, including the occasional obscenity. There are also a couple minor characters who are homosexuals, and I’m not sure whether we’re supposed to approve of them or not.

The book’s chief weakness, in my view, is not enough description. I had trouble understanding what the various racial groups looked like, and what buildings looked like. I had some trouble keeping the many characters straight (though that’s not unusual for me in any book). Also (I never thought I’d say this) a couple information dumps would have been helpful. Some things that wouldn’t be secrets to someone who’d read the first book were opaque to me until the end.

Less than a fully professional work, Never Taste Death is nevertheless a better than average self-published novel, especially in the Christian fantasy genre. Cautions for language, adult themes, and violence. Not for kids.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Whispering Smith,’ by Frank H. Spearman

Leave a comment

I grew curious about the character of Whispering Smith years back. I was reading a book about the Wild West, and the author mentioned, in an aside, that Smith was based – in part – on the real life lawman Joe Lefors. Lefors is best remembered nowadays as the faceless posseman in a straw boater who so spooks Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in the movie. In real life, alas, Joe Lefors was less of… well, of a force. He didn’t catch Butch and Sundance, after all, and his greatest achievement was extracting the confession that sent Tom Horn to the gallows for murder in 1903. Historians ever since have disputed the validity of that confession.

The same writer mentioned that the vicious killer Harvey DuSang in the novel is based on another Wild Bunch member, Harvey Logan (Kid Curry).

I first heard of Whispering Smith in a short-lived 1961 TV series that starred Audie Murphy. That series is notorious for being cited in a Senate Juvenile Delinquency Committee hearing as an egregious example of TV violence. The series actually bore almost no resemblance to the book, retaining the hero’s name and pretty much nothing else.

The series was loosely based on a 1948 movie (actually the last of several film adaptations) that starred Alan Ladd and Robert Preston. That movie was based on the book, though they moved it back in time (the novel is set around 1900, and everybody has telephones), and omitted a rather charming romantic subplot.

Having established that, let’s talk about the actual book, Whispering Smith, by Frank H. Spearman. It’s free for Kindle, so I thought that after all these years I’d find out what it was about. I had a pleasant surprise in store.

The story starts with a railroad foreman, Murray Sinclair, arriving at a wreck site to clear the track. He’s a well-paid and competent employee of the company, popular and efficient. But, we also learn, he’s pretty much a man without a conscience. We’d call him a sociopath today. He considers it one of his perks to plunder the wrecks. He’s caught at it by a railroad supervisor, and fired on the spot.

Sinclair withdraws along with his work crew, and becomes an outlaw, dynamiting and wrecking the trains he used to salvage. This causes the railroad president to call in his best detective, Gordon “Whispering” Smith.

Smith has been keeping away from that particular area for some time, out of consideration for a resident of the town. Marion Sinclair is Smith’s old flame, but she married his childhood friend Murray Sinclair. She’s learned Murray’s true character by now and has separated from him, but (in one of those plot points that would be incomprehensible to today’s reader) they both respect the sanctity of marriage and wouldn’t dream of committing adultery together.

But Sinclair is too proud to run, and Smith has principles about doing his job, so their final showdown is inevitable.

When I started reading Whispering Smith, it seemed to me a pretty standard old-fashioned novel. The prose was a little more florid than what we prefer today, and the dialogue doubtlessly bowdlerized. But the more I read, the more I got caught up in the story. The characters are exceedingly well done, especially that of Smith himself. He’s one of those seemingly ordinary men who reveals increasingly intriguing depths.

Everything surprised Whispering Smith, even his salary; but an important consequence was that nothing excited him.

I truly enjoyed Whispering Smith, and I recommend it heartily.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Calendar of Crime,’ by Ellery Queen

Leave a comment

Miss Ypson had not always been dead; au contraire. She had lived for seventy-eight years, for most of them breathing hard. As her father used to remark, “She was a very active little verb.” Miss Ypson’s father was a professor of Greek at a small Midwestern university. He had conjugated his daughter with the rather bewildered assistance of one of his brawnier students, an Iowa poultry heiress.

I think I’ve intimated before that I’m adopting a policy of withdrawing – a bit – from contemporary fiction. We find ourselves in a new Victorian era, where quite a lot of things that are true can’t be said in polite company, and where every story is expected to genuflect, at least for a moment, toward the altar of the accepted pieties. It’s all very boring and annoying, and I need to stretch my legs on older, more gracious paths from time to time.

So I’m going to be checking out some literature of the past. As my tastes run to mysteries, that necessarily involves what’s called the stories of the Golden Age. Which will involve acquiring some new tastes. Golden Age mysteries are primarily puzzle stories, and that approach doesn’t excite me much. I like my stories character driven.

I downloaded Ellery Queen’s Calendar of Crime. Published in 1952, it’s not strictly a Golden Age book, but the approach is pretty much the same. It’s not a novel but a short story collection. The “calendar” of the title means that each of the twelve stories is set, chronologically and thematically, in a particular month of the year. The January story involves a New Year’s Eve party; the February story involves a legend about George Washington, etc. The main character, of course, is Ellery Queen, a sophisticated New York amateur detective whose father happens to be a police inspector.

It’s a good collection. The puzzles are clever, and the writing (by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, who wrote under the Ellery Queen name) can be quite elegant, as witness the excerpt at the top of this review. These are puzzle stories, not character stories, but within the bounds of the form the authors did a good job of making them relatively plausible.

I’ll say this, though. Never hire Ellery Queen to protect either your life or your property. He will always fail, because if he succeeded there’d be no mystery for him to solve.

No cautions whatever are necessary for questionable content. As some mystery fan once said, “I like a good murder, without any immorality in it.”