Interview with Christopher Bailey and Dr. Boli

The men behind Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine have an interview on The Catholic Book Blogger [defunct]. If you’ve every wondered what kind of wondrous ponderer the writer behind Dr. Boli must be, here’s a small glimpse. Both Mr. Bailey and Dr. Boli give their thoughtful answers. Mr. Bailey says:

Dr. Boli’s last name is etymologically the same as mine. The Baileys were a Pennsylvania Dutch family from York County who originally spelled their name Böli (or Behli or Beli—they’re all pronounced “Bailey” in Deitsch). The face of Dr. Boli is actually a photograph of Samuel Bailey, my great-great grandfather. And the name “Henricus Albertus” is a Latinized version of my grandfather’s name, Harry Albert Bailey. As I tell you these things, my grandfather is spinning in his grave like a top, because he had no idea his family was German: he fought the Germans in the First World War and hated everything German for the rest of his life, right down to the “dirty German dark bread” at the bakery.

They go on to discuss a new book, Dr. Boli’s Gift Horse

Storytelling Tips

Emma Coats, formerly a storyboard artist with Pixar, has taught storytelling for a few years, I gather. Her 22 principles of storytelling have been on the Interwebs for a while, but I don’t believe I’ve linked to them here. They are very good.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

For a different perspective, award-winning author Paul Harding has a few ideas of what makes fiction work. “Fiction is about immanence. We are beings who experience our selves in time and space, through our senses. Fiction persuades its readers that they are reading something artful by immersing them as fully as possible in the senses and perceptions, the thoughts and actions of fictional lives.”

Author Barnabas Piper also chips in his two sense, saying it’s the boring parts that make the whole story work. “World-class novels are not composed of email responses and traffic jams and grocery shopping. But without such things the characters would never get where they needed to go and be who they need to be.”

Pixar-Storytelling1

You’d better watch out



The Council of Nicea. I think St. Nicholas is the bald guy with the book on the right. Photo credit: Hispalois.

Our friend Dr. Paul McCain of Cyberbrethren quotes another friend of ours, Dr. Gene Edward Veith today, reprinting his classic account of Saint Nicholas (whose feast day is today) slapping the heretic Arius.

During the Council of Nicea, jolly old St. Nicholas got so fed up with Arius, who taught that Jesus was just a man, that he walked up and slapped him! That unbishoplike behavior got him in trouble. The council almost stripped him of his office, but Nicholas said he was sorry, so he was forgiven.

Dr. Veith goes on to make some constructive suggestions concerning new Christmas slapping customs we might adopt.

[Update: Due to the ever changing flow of the Internet, Cyberbrethren is no more. Here’s an updated article from Veith at The Lutheran Witness. Here’s an even more recent post referring to this article on Veith’s own blog.]

'The Ambushers' by Donald Hamilton


It made me feel kind of cheap The man was sincerely trying to kill me in a fair fight, and I was just setting him up for a bullet. Well, it’s not a chivalrous age, nor is mine an honorable profession. I wasn’t about to risk turning loose a wild man with an army and a nuclear missile because of some boyish notions of fair play.

For some time a cadre of readers has been clamoring for the re-release of Donald Hamilton’s 1960s Matt Helm novels, which have suffered from neglect, probably due in great part to the memory of those lame old movies with Dean Martin, which are as much like the original books as Paris Hilton resembles Conrad Hilton. Aside from the hero’s name and his cover identity as a photographer, the movies are nothing like the books. Matt Helm was often called an American James Bond in his day, and the comparison is a good one. He’s a tall, blondish fellow, a Scandinavian-American born in Minnesota(!). He works as an assassin for a super-secret American spy agency. My impression, on the basis of reading this one book, The Ambushers, is that the Helm novels are a little grittier than the Bond books (no tuxedos or casinos here), and just a tad more humane.

In this outing, we find Matt in a fictional South American country, setting up a sniper shot to kill a rebel leader, at the invitation of the local government. In the aftermath of his success, the government forces liberate a prisoner of the rebels, a female American agent who has been tortured. Back in the states, he finds himself ordered to go to Mexico to clean up a loose end from the previous job, and through a train of circumstances finds himself teamed up with the same female agent he helped rescue, almost reluctantly helping her to recover from the trauma.

I enjoyed The Ambushers very much, and have already bought The Death of a Citizen, which is the first in the series. Donald Hamilton was a writer of solid prose with a good sense of character and a mordant wit. Some mature content, but due to the age of the book it’s pretty mild by contemporary standards. Recommended.

Plagiarism Accusations, Retractions

I didn’t mention it directly in the “Writing for others” post below, but I linked to a Patheos.com post on plagiarism and personality-based leadership. In that post, Miles Mullin linked out to this week’s context: Janet Mefferd accusing Pastor Mark Driscoll of plagiarism in his most recent book and later, other publications. He links out to evidence of this charge, which allows you to judge some of the material for yourself.

Now, Mefferd has retracted her accusation and removed her blog with the evidence and the interview in which she made the accusation entirely. You can read her apology here.

Update: In her apology, Mefferd did not “evangelical industrial complex,” but her producer, who just resigned over all of this, did. Ex-producer Ingrid Schlueter wrote, among other things: “I hosted a radio show for 23 years and know from experience how Big Publishing protects its celebrities. Anything but fawning adulation for those who come on your show (a gift of free air time for the author/publisher by the way) is not taken well. Like Dr. Carl Trueman so aptly asked yesterday in his column at Reformation 21 [sic], does honest journalism have any role to play in evangelicalism now? (It was rhetorical.) My own take on that question is, no, it does not.”

All of this is ugly, but since it’s public, I’d like a clearer explanation than what has been given at this point. Some commenters are saying the silence of certain writers and leaders is telling, but I don’t think it’s telling what they think it’s telling. I suggest it’s telling that these leaders don’t want to assume guilt and start shooting.

Poirot Est Fini

The final episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot has aired, though I doubt I’ll see it for many months, if not years. Netflix only has shows as recent as 1995 so far. LARB has a lengthy review of the series with many quotes from David Suchet, who has worked very hard to present the truest performances of Christie’s Poirot ever. Molly McArdle writes:

As a character, Poirot has had a curious shelf life. He certainly doesn’t have the name, or visual recognition that Holmes enjoys. He also lacks that detective’s cold elegance, the kind that drives even very reasonable people into gif-making hysterics. Still, Poirot’s appeal endures. Between 2004 and 2005, for instance, the anime series Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot and Marple had a 39-episode run in Japan. In its 25 years, Agatha Christie’s Poirot has been broadcast in 100 countries and dubbed into 80 languages.

A little trivia: Suchet played Inspector Japp in the CBS production of Thirteen at Dinner with Peter Ustinov as Poirot. Suchet says it was his worst performance ever, but it helped get him the part in the A&E series.


Poirot with Hastings by ~CeskaSoda on deviantART

"Writing for others is a privilege."

Kevin DeYoung talks about a pastor’s responsibilities and possible conflicts with writing books and articles. Among other good thoughts, he says, “I’m glad I read Martyn Lloyd-Jones before I ever wrote a book because I can hear the Doctor in the back of my head saying, ‘The pastor is first of all a preacher and not a writer.’ There is nothing wrong with being a writer first, but that’s simply not the calling of a pastor.”

He notes what a wonderful privilege it is for people to read anything you’ve written, which is a good reason for a writer to get over himself.

On a related note, Miles Mullin writes about contemporary tribalism among evangelicals. “This is the troubling reality of the personality-based leadership that encompasses much of American evangelicalism. Often, charisma and dynamic communication skills trump character and integrity as popular appeal wins the day,” he observes. Like fans of sports teams who argue over purely subjective judgements, fans of preachers and writers defend their leaders against any accusation, sometimes even against obvious sins.

'Three War Stories' by David Mamet


I do not understand that discipline called “Ethnography,” which seems to me the validation of a prejudice by means of an excursion.

One can no more understand the operation of other cultures from observation than can one so understand the sexual act.

Observation, in the case of each, is missing the point, and Ethnography, or “Anthropology,” rests on a false assumption: that one may be free of prejudice.

Hugh Hewitt interviewed David Mamet, the legendary playwright who has recently “come out” as a conservative, a couple weeks ago. They were discussing this book, Three War Stories. They concentrated on the first story of this collection, The Redwing, which Mamet described as a novella dually inspired by George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books and Patrick O’Brien’s seafaring novels. So naturally I had to buy it.

This is one of those profound, densely packed works that probably ought to be read multiple times, and I’ve only read it once. But I enjoyed it, particularly the iconoclastic elements, which are many. I’m just not sure I entirely grasp the themes.

The Redwing is a very complex story, ostensibly narrated by a former sailor, galley slave, and spy who later became the author of popular novels based on his own adventures. He does not tell his story directly, but as a series of commentaries on his books, with which he assumes the reader is already familiar. So we have to piece his real story together, in non-chronological fashion. Thus we’re dealing with a story on numerous levels – “factual” (though fictional) notes on a fictional work, based on supposedly factual events. This allows the author to play with the problems of the veteran who has a need to tell his story, but not all of it. He protects his country, first by risking his life, and then by concealing part of the truth from it.

Notes on Plains Warfare is an examination (which I thought extremely apt) of the dynamics of a war in which one side had a strong moral case, superior tactics, and greater resolve, but was crushed by an opponent simply more numerous, technologically superior, and more pragmatic. It is presented in the form of another memoir, by an American army survivor.

The last story, The Handle and the Hold, is a more matter-of-fact story, a little more linear than the other two, about two Jewish friends, a cop and a gangster, who join together to do a secret mission for Israel shortly after the end of World War II.

Definitely worth reading, but more work than the fiction I usually review. Cautions for language and mature subject matter.

'The Hunger Games' Is Flawed and Other Stories

  1. N.D. Wilson, an author more of us should be reading, explains the fundamental flaws in The Hunger Games. Self-sacrifice? Not hardly. “Revolutions,” he says, “are not started by teen girls suicide-pacting with cute baker boys. Oppressive regimes are not threatened by people who do what they are told.”
  2. George Eliot writes, “And when we stood at length and parted amid that columnar circuit of the forest trees, beneath the last twilight of starless skies, I seemed to be gazing … on a sanctuary with no Presence to hallow it, and heaven left lonely of a God.” She is being quoted in this brief post on art without God and what that means for morality.
  3. A father of boys and girls talks about their roles in the world as informed by Star Wars and other movies. There are many problems with his brief presention, which I’m sure a worldview class could pick apart for a month, but I think he asks some good questions and makes a fair point. What is a girl to take away from watching Star Wars? Hope the boys fight well so she can reward them in the end? What should a boy take away from that movie? That he must fight to win and get the girl in the end? (And to touch on one problem with this presentation, may I ask why I should assume patriarchy is wrong? Is it that men are mostly wrong?)

Brooks-Prosperity