Assemblies of God writer Frank Luke reviews Troll Valley.
Holiday break
Norwegian children in exile, celebrating Syttende Mai in London in 1942. Photo: Ole Friele Backer (1907—1947)
I should probably warn you that I won’t be posting tomorrow, as my Sons of Norway lodge is hosting a Constitution Day (Syttende Mai) celebration tomorrow (6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Danish American Center in Minneapolis, if you’re in the area) and I have to be there to lend a hand. I’ll be delivering a lecture on the holiday, which I’ll spare you just now.
The Wardog's Coin, by Vox Day
Because I enjoyed Throne of Bones, Vox Day was kind enough to send me a copy of his new release, The Wardog’s Coin, which consists of two shorter stories set in the same universe.
I enjoyed them both, in different ways. The title story is more immediately accessible, being (so far as I can tell – I may have missed some subtext) a pretty straight war story about human mercenaries fighting an army of goblins and orcs for an elven king. It’s a rousing and tragic tale of men and war.
The second story, “Qalabi Dawn,” is more challenging but interesting on a couple of levels. It’s the story of a desert race of rational creatures who seem to be a cross between humans and big cats. A ruthless ruler conquers all the prides in order to defend his race as a whole from human aggression. Aside from offering a kind of metaphor for the place of Islam in the world, this story deals very successfully with a challenge I’ve tried to tackle myself in the past, with (I fear) debatable success – the conception and communication of a wholly alien ethos, imagining what creatures who really thought differently from us might be like.
Well done. Recommended.
Cain at Gettysburg, by Ralph Peters
Lee would have to be mad to send his divisions across that field. And Hunt was sure he would do it.
When I finished reading Ralph Peters’ Civil War novel Cain at Gettysburg, I almost checked my clothing for blood spatter.
Up until now Michael Shaara’s epic novel The Killer Angels has been considered not only the best Gettysburg novel ever written, but the best possible Gettysburg novel.
It’s been a long time since I read Shaara’s book, but I’m fairly certain that, for all its virtues, it didn’t have anything like the impact on me that Cain at Gettysburg did.
Cain at Gettysburg is a tactile book. It’s written at eye level – sometimes ground level – and leaves a powerful – occasionally sickening – impression of the actual experience of the men involved, generals and common soldiers alike. We are never far from the smells of gunpowder and dysentery and decomposing bodies. We feel the itch of the uniforms, the burning heat of the July sun, and the thirst and hunger of men who can never get sufficient clean water or food. Continue reading Cain at Gettysburg, by Ralph Peters
"Comes a Day Born of the Gentle South"
“After dark vapors have oppress’d our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,
Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
The eyelids with the passing coolness play
Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains.
The calmest thoughts came round us; as of leaves
Budding—fruit ripening in stillness—Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves—
Sweet Sappho’s cheek—a smiling infant’s breath—
The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs—
A woodland rivulet—a Poet’s death.” — Keats
Jeremiah time
I’m in a kind of a mood today.
In the last couple days the Minnesota House and the Senate, both with Democrat majorities, have passed a bill legalizing homosexual marriage, and about an hour and a half ago the governor signed it. August 1 it becomes law.
The prospect of being hanged in a fortnight, as Dr. Johnson noted, concentrates the mind wonderfully. And the prospect of my own eventual imprisonment for a hate crime also has the effect of focusing my own thoughts. A Christian ought to be dead to the world, prepared at all times to suffer for his faith. And it looks very much (at least to me) that such a time is coming.
If I’m being paranoid, I’m not the only one. My friend Mitch Berg of Shot In the Dark blog, a libertarian and no Bible thumper, addresses (among other points) the abysmal record of “freedom to marry” advocates in terms of spreading the freedom around in this post.
Chanting “The First Amendment protects religious expression!” is about like saying “the Second Amendment protects your right to keep and bear arms!” or “the Fourth Amendment protects you from unreasonable searches and seizures!” or “The Tenth Amendment reserves unenumerated rights to the States and People!”. All are true – provided you take them seriously enough to beat back ill-advised legal attacks on them.
So I’m contemplating how to prepare for persecution to come – not the metaphorical kind where we complain about people talking to us mean, but the kind where we actually get sent to prison for expressing our beliefs. Do I compose my soul to accept arrest and incarceration? Do I squirrel away portable wealth for a quick run for the border (I understand diamonds aren’t as useful as they once were)?
Or should I take the Lord literally when He says “Cast no thought upon the morrow?”
Must ponder.
Every Poet Holds to These Dogmas
W. H. Auden explains:
Every poet, consciously or unconsciously, holds the following absolute presuppositions, as the dogmas of his art:
(1) A historical world exists, a world of unique events and unique persons, related by analogy, not identity. The number of events and analogical relations is potentially infinite. The existence of such a world is a good, and every addition to the number of events, persons and relations is an additional good.
(2) The historical world is a fallen world, i.e. though it is good that it exists, the way in which it exists is evil, being full of unfreedom and disorder.
(3) The historical world is a redeemable world. The unfreedom and disorder of the past can be reconciled in the future.
It follows from the first presupposition that the poet’s activity in creating a poem is analogous to God’s activity in creating man after his own image. It is not an imitation, for were it so, the poet would be able to create like God ex nihilo; instead, he requires pre-existing occasions of feeling and a pre-existing language out of which to create. It is analogous in that the poet creates not necessarily according to a law of nature but voluntarily according to provocation.
(stolen from Alan Jacobs)
Meet the Neanderthal man
Neanderthal Man
Things Learned While Looking for Something Else Dept.:
If you belong to one of those increasingly rare churches that still sings hymns occasionally, you’ve probably sung the hymn, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”
If you look at the bottom of the page, you’ll note that it was written by Joachim Neander (1650-1680), and translated by Catherine Winkworth.
Neander, though born in Germany, somehow managed to be neither Lutheran nor Catholic, but Reformed. He experienced a Christian conversion while studying theology, and became a Latin teacher in Dusseldorf. A lover of nature, he used to preach to large open air meetings in the Dussel river valley. He also wrote more than 60 hymns.
Long after his death, in the early 19th Century, the valley where he used to preach was renamed the Neander Valley in his honor. Or, in German, Neanderthal.
And it was in the Neander Valley, of course, that scientists found the bones of the prehistoric humanoid who became known as Neanderthal Man.
So even when they look back at their evolutionary family tree, biologists must pay tribute to a Christian hymn writer.
Mwa-ha-ha-ha! You cannot escape us! We’re everywhere!
Critics Abound for Renowned Dan Brown
Lars shared this article on Facebook, and I was moved–moved I tell you–to share it here, because you can’t get good writing like this often: “The voice at the other end of the line gave a sigh, like a mighty oak toppling into a great river, or something else that didn’t sound like a sigh if you gave it a moment’s thought. ‘Who cares what the stupid critics say?’ advised the literary agent. ‘They’re just snobs. You have millions of fans.‘”
Michael Deacon writes in response to the Dan Brown’s upcoming novel, Inferno
The novel is another unique take on art history and world conspiracy. From the book: “Against [the backdrop of Dante’s Inferno], Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem
Dude! That is one unique thriller! I’ll go on record now by predicting this will tell of a Manx plot to manipulate world currency. Dante has been rumored to be Manx sympathizer among all the scholars who have studied him. Sorry, I should have given you a spoiler alert.
All the women are strong, and the men are good looking…
My brother posted this link on Facebook today. It’s from a recent news story on a Twin Cities TV station about the sheriff of my home town, where goodness abounds and the writ of Original Sin runs not.
You are interested in this story because it’ll give you some idea of the site of one of your favorite novels, Troll Valley. Which appears to be enjoying a better sales rank than Hailstone Mountain right now, for reasons that pass my comprehension.
Have a good weekend!