All posts by Lars Walker

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘The Professor and the Madman,’ by Simon Winchester

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I bought this one because it’s going to be assigned in a class I’ll be taking later this summer. Since it interested me on its own merit, I thought I’d read it now and get a jump on things.

The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester, is a careful examination of the facts of a story that’s become a legend in the literary world. The popular account, first published by an American journalist in 1915, tells how Professor James Murray, chief editor of the magisterial Oxford English Dictionary, wished to meet in person his most valuable volunteer contributor (in those pre-database days, the literary citations necessary to trace word meanings through the centuries were gathered by an army of volunteers who combed old books for examples of word use and sent them to Oxford on slips of paper). So he wrote to Dr. William Minor of Crowthorne, Berkshire, asking to visit. Receiving his invitation, he took the train to Crowthorne, and was driven by carriage to a great, walled estate out in the countryside. Ushered inside to an impressive office, he asked the distinguished man behind the desk if he had the honor of addressing Dr. William Minor. The man said he was not. “I am the superintendent of Broadmoor Asylum. Dr. Minor is one of our patients.”

The actual events, which author Winchester documents, are a little less dramatic, but the overall story remains a fascinating one. William Minor was born to missionary parents on the island of Ceylon. He studied medicine, became a surgeon, and served in the American Civil War. Suffering increasing paranoid delusions in the wake of his war experiences, he eventually moved to London (Lambeth), where early one morning he murdered an inoffensive workman with his Colt revolver. His obvious insanity earned him a suite at Broadmoor, where he answered a call for volunteers to help with the massive, multi-volume dictionary.

Simon Winchester is an excellent writer, and the story is a fascinating one for anyone who loves books and words. I have a set of the OED myself (the two-volume micrographic edition, which you have to read with a magnifying glass), and it’s a treasure. Winchester notes that the purpose of the project was different from that of other nations. Unlike the French, for instance, there was no intention to “fix” the language in a definitive, unchangeable form. The OED was designed to trace the history of each English word, and to include all current variations.

The author’s attempt to parallel Murray’s and Minor’s life stories is not entirely successful, in my view. Yes, they were both raised Congregationalists, but in different countries, and their life’s paths were not all that similar. It is suggested that Minor’s childhood Puritanism may have contributed to his breakdown, but that theme is not hammered on too heavily.

All in all, a masterful book about a masterful project. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Anniversary,’ by Mel Parish

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I have to review this book just because it fooled me in a couple ways. It’s not a bad novel, but what stuck with me was the non-plot-related surprises.

First of all, although the story is set in America, it gradually dawned on me as I read that the author had to be English. I noticed, eventually, that double quotation marks were set inside single quotation marks in dialogue, in the English style. Also the author threw in English-isms like “bonnet” for the hood of a car, or “Too right,” as an idiomatic phrase.

The second surprise only came at the end. More on that later.

The story of The Anniversary centers on Paul Rigby, a police detective in a small town. For the past year he has been balanced on the edge of career disaster. He’s approaching the anniversary of the death of his fiancée. He loved her deeply, but learned after she was gone that she’d lied to him and betrayed him. Since then he’s been drinking heavily, getting into fights, and being self-destructive in general. The only thing standing between him and unemployment is his police chief, who has a fatherly fondness for him and has allowed him to live in an apartment above his garage, where he can keep an eye on him.

The plot of the book involves an accountant who’s arrested for embezzlement, but swears he’s innocent. Rigby narrowly avoids going to bed with the man’s wife, and does his best to investigate the case, in between fights and suspensions from duty and getting his ankle in a cast.

The character of Rigby was well-conceived, but went a little too far for my taste. What I mean is, it’s fine to create a damaged personality with lots of anger and pain in him, but so much time was spent on Rigby’s unhappiness that (for me) it slowed the story down and told us more than we cared to know.

Which was all explained when I discovered that the author, Mel Parish, is not a man as I had assumed, but a woman. Usually I can (or think I can) identify a male character written by a female, but Rigby fooled me. What I took for a failure in narrative was in fact just a woman’s point of view. Author Parish did a better than usual job of getting into a man’s head, but (in my opinion) spent too much time in there, describing the exotic furnishings.

Not perfect, but you might enjoy it. Some rough language and mild sex. And some violence, of course.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Police at the Funeral,’ by Margery Allingham

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I’ve been interested to read one of Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion books ever since I saw Peter Davidson’s portrayal on a BBC television series some years back. Books in the series have recently become available for Kindle at low prices, so I bought Police at the Funeral.

Albert Campion, the amateur detective of these books, bears a resemblance to Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey, and it’s not by accident. Campion began as a parody of Lord Peter, but took on a life of his own. Nevertheless, they’re still alike enough to be brothers, except that Campion wears horn rimmed glasses instead of Wimsey’s monocle.

In Police at the Funeral, Campion goes to stay in a great house in Cambridge, at the request of a friend, and of his fiancee who is a lady’s companion there. The resident family is an eccentric and crotchety assortment of elderly siblings and cousins, all constantly quibbling and chafing under the iron rule of a formidable great-aunt. One of the residents has disappeared, and soon his body is discovered, bound with a rope and shot to death.

The story is perfectly a perfectly adequate example of the “cozy” English variety of mystery, but I found it less interesting than I hoped. Perhaps my tastes have been spoiled by the ugly realism of the modern mystery, or perhaps I just compared it unfairly to Dorothy Sayer’s books, which are (in my view) a notch brighter and more interesting.

Not bad, though. I’m sure many of our readers will enjoy it.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Stranger,’ by Harlan Coben

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Harlan Coben is a remarkable writer of thrillers. It has been noted that he avoids profanity in his dialogue, and his use of violence is pretty restrained. Nevertheless he is capable of producing books as shocking as any you will ever read, in their own way. The Stranger is Hitchcockian in its portrayal of a very ordinary man thrust into a world of lies and mortal danger, and raises societal and existential questions as well.

Adam Price is no man of action. An easygoing type, he’s a successful eminent domain lawyer, living in a prosperous New Jersey suburb. He loves his beautiful wife and his two teenage sons. He’s “living the dream,” as one of his friends likes to say.

But, as the author is careful to emphasize, “dream” is precisely the word for their lives. Their security is insecure, their happiness fragile. Adam learns this first hand when a stranger sidles up to him after a youth lacrosse league meeting at the local American Legion, and tells him, “You didn’t have to stay with her.” Then he gives him information to prove that his wife has lied to him about something that matters deeply in their relationship.

It’s not just him who’s receiving such messages, Adam learns in time. There are people who search the internet, ferreting out secrets and blackmailing people, self-righteously believing they’re fighting the good fight against hypocrisy.

And they’re not even the worst ones….

Besides questioning our illusions of security and secrecy in the modern world, The Stranger also raises interesting questions about what they call “hacktivism” nowadays. This book is as relevant as anything you’ll read this year.

It drew me in. It fascinated me. It broke my heart. Highly recommended.

Uncategorized

First priorities

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I’m late to the game, but I’d like to share some things I was thinking a couple weeks back, when everybody was talking about “Draw Muhammad Day” (is that the acceptable spelling this week? It’s hard to keep track). Chances are you’ve thought similar thoughts, but I haven’t seen the argument framed in exactly the terms I’d wish.

First of all, I’m all for civic courtesy. Going out and purposely insulting somebody’s religion (even if it’s Islam, which I consider a delusion of the devil) is bad taste, bad manners, and bad behavior as a neighbor. As a Christian, I consider it not only unloving but counterproductive for evangelism purposes. I would never do it, if all things were equal.

But there are events and statements that do make all things unequal. Like a planet dropped into a solar system, they change all the orbits and disrupt the orderly functioning of things.

Violence is the most radical of these. When violence is added to the mix, everything is altered.

When somebody declares that they intend to exercise a Murder Veto on the First Amendment, offending them ceases to be a faux pas. It becomes a kind of a duty for everyone who cares about freedom of expression. If you can’t insult the source of the threat yourself, you have to at least support those who will. Even if, under normal circumstances, those people are scuzzballs.

Because constitutional rights are more important than civility. Incivility will not destroy freedom. The threat of violence can.

The Murder Veto must not be tolerated, or we are lost.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘The Edge of the World,’ by Michael Pye

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The Vikings are hailed as the first Europeans, at least by some French scholars, breaking cultural divisions as well as breaking heads, and made into a foundation myth for our flabby, neo-liberal Europe.

The moment somebody shared a link to this book on Facebook, I knew I had to get it. And I’m glad I did, though I have certain quibbles. Michael Pye’s The Edge of the World reminded me of that old BBC television series with James Burke, “Connections.” It follows a somewhat wandering road of causation from the 7th Century to the 16th Century, showing how innovations that began when the Frisians dug so much peat out of their homeland that they were forced to build dikes and canals to control flooding led to the development of North Sea trade. Trade meant developing the concepts of hard money and credit, which led to abstract mathematical thinking, which led (in part) to modern science.

Trade means choices, and choices mean freedom. In a non-dogmatic way, The Edge of the World is a vigorous defense of capitalism.

There were parts I didn’t care for. Pye falls into the old trap of condemning the monks for denouncing the Vikings, on the grounds that Christians did pretty much the same things. He doesn’t go so far as to suggest the Christians should have just embraced the Vikings and their religion, but I’m not sure what the point is. He makes what seem to me rather conventional comments on people’s “need” to define ourselves by identifying enemies, as if enemies haven’t been in abundant supply throughout history. I suspect he wouldn’t criticize Muslims in the same way for condemning Crusaders.

But all in all an excellent book, full of interesting information, and with a sweeping narrative line. I recommend it.

Uncategorized

Spur of the moment Vikings

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It’s a strange sensation. I have no homework to do tonight. I submitted my final paper for this semester today, and now I’m done with all that. If I keep a “sufficient to the day” attitude, I have nothing to worry about until my first summer class starts, which happens to be before the end of the month.

But. Today I’m free. I’m 2/3 done with my graduate classes, and I can do anything I want this evening. I can loaf. Or I can tell you about my weekend.

In my youth (you’ll probably be surprised to learn) I had a reputation as a guy who had no problem dropping everything and driving off to a distant town with friends, on a moment’s notice. Saturday was like that, sort of. I think it was Thursday I got a call from Ragnar, who said that we had a Viking gig nobody had planned on, scheduled for Saturday. The hosts thought they’d confirmed with us, and they were planning on us, and had advertised us. We didn’t know about it.

I said sure, I’d go. Rather to my own surprise, I’d worked far enough ahead on my final class work that I was kind of coasting through the last couple weeks. I could take Saturday off without repercussions.

So Saturday morning I rose early, loaded Miss Ingebretsen, my PT Cruiser, with almost my full Viking load, and set out for Litchfield, Minnesota.

Litchfield is located in the west central part of the state, near Hutchinson. The local Sons of Norway lodge, in association with the congregation of historic Ness Church, Acton Township, were holding a Scandinavian festival. Continue reading Spur of the moment Vikings →

Fiction, Reviews

The Risk Agent novels, by Ridley Pearson

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Recently I reviewed a couple of Ridley Pearson’s Lou Boldt novels, part of a continuing series I enjoy and watch for. I went on to try out another series of Pearson’s, the Risk Agent novels, which are very different stories, though equally well told. Though less to my taste.

The Risk Agent stories have two main characters. One is John Knox (interesting choice of name). John is a former commando, now running an import/export business. He makes good money, but he needs a lot of money, because his younger brother Tommie, whose guardian he is, suffers from an autistic-type disorder. Tommie functions well with good care, but such care is expensive. So John regularly takes side jobs with Rutherford Risk, an international private security firm. He was recruited as a risk agent by an old military friend.

The other main character is Grace Chu, formerly of the Chinese army. She is beautiful (of course), trained in martial arts, and a computer expert. She has a troubled relationship with her family, who do not approve of her career or her wish to marry a man of whom they do not approve.

John and Grace meet in The Risk Agent, in which they deal with a hostage situation in Shanghai. In an adventure they barely survive, they learn to like and trust each other, though they won’t admit to their mutual attraction.

In Choke Point they are sent to Amsterdam to deal with a child labor racket. And in The Red Room they are sent to Istanbul on a strange, off-the-books mission that makes no sense to them and leaves them on the run without support.

There’s an interesting character arc in the Risk Agent books. It’s not only the growing awareness of mutual attraction between the two main characters, but a hard fact about themselves that John already knows and Grace begins to learn. They are both adrenaline junkies, danger addicts. John tells himself he does his risk agent work for Tommie’s sake, but in his clearer moments he can see that his main motivation is his need to live as intensely as he did when he was in combat. If he gets himself killed, Tommie will be left all alone. And Grace discovers that she’s becoming exactly the same.

This intensity is the reason why, although I liked the Risk Agent books well enough, I still prefer the Lou Boldt stories. The level of stress achieved and maintained in these books is so cinematically high – and so generally unrelieved – that it kind of wore me out. I need a few breaks in my action stories, some down time and comic relief.

Still, I think the Risk Agent books will work very well for people who like their action poured straight. I can see them being turned into action movies, and very successful ones.

Cautions for the usual things – language, adult situations, and violence. But not bad by contemporary standards.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Bolg P.I.: The Bolg and the Beautiful,’ by Dave Freer

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One of many things that irritate me in this world is reviews that say, “This book just didn’t work for me.” I’m sure I’ve written some myself, but it seems a pointless exercise. Reviews should be reserved for people who understand what’s going on, whether they love it or hate it. If it just disappoints you for reasons you can’t articulate, why bother reviewing at all?

Still, here I am reviewing a book written by a friend of several friends, who is acclaimed by all as a good guy and a fine writer. And yet about all I can say is that it didn’t really work for me.

Bolg P.I.: The Bolg and the Beautiful is a comic mashup, a combination of hardboiled detective story and fantasy. A “bolg” is a kind of Irish dwarf, and our hero/narrator, who is generally just known as Bolg, has survived (like the characters of Gaiman’s American Gods) into the modern world. Surviving with him are a number of mythological beings, including a wizard, the goddess Freya and some family members, and the dwarfs of the Rheingold.

When Freya, who is quite old now but still retains the power to dazzle any normal male, is robbed of her savings by a con man (who is immune to her charms because he swings the other way), Bolg is called in to try to recover the money for her. He employs natural and supernatural means to accomplish this task, and there’s a lot of comedy along the way.

I did laugh sometimes, and the author now and then made comments on the world with which I agreed profoundly. But the mix didn’t satisfy me. It didn’t entirely work either as drama or farce, for my taste.

I won’t deny, however, that the prose was good and I got some laughs out of it. So your mileage may vary, and likely will.

Religion

On the streets of Rome

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A conversation like this, or something like it, must have happened during the persecutions of the Christians in Rome.

Marcus, a Christian, meets his friend Gaius on the street.



Marcus: “How are you?”

Gaius: “Fine. Just got back from sacrificing to the emperor.”

Marcus: “Sacrificing to the emperor? When did you leave the Faith?”

Gaius: “Oh, I’m still a Christian. I just realized how ridiculous this whole business of refusing to sacrifice to the emperor is.”

Marcus: “How can you reconcile confessing Jesus as Lord with calling Caesar lord?”

Gaius: “See, this is where we’ve been getting it wrong. We’ve been making a big deal out of nothing. Look in the gospels. Do you see one passage where Jesus says we can’t sacrifice to Caesar? No. Not one. You’d think if this thing was so important, He’d have mentioned it, wouldn’t you?”

Marcus: “Jesus is the God of Israel, and He doesn’t allow worship of other gods!”

Gaius: “There you go. You’ve got to go all the way back to the Old Testament to find your rule. Aren’t we free from the Law now? Are we going to stone people for wearing mixed fabrics or eating shellfish?”

Marcus: “There’s a difference between the ceremonial law and the moral law.”

Gaius: “And there you go with the moral law. You realize that refusing to sacrifice makes our neighbors uncomfortable, don’t you? They feel judged. My God is not a God of judgment. He’s a God of love.”

Marcus: “You’re not a Christian anymore.”

Gaius: “You’re not a Christian either! You’re just a hater!”