Fiction, Reviews

Savage Run, by C. J. Box

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I thought I’d take another run (savage or not) at C. J. Box’s Joe Pickett novels. I didn’t dislike Open Season, the first book in the series, but I wasn’t bowled over by it either. My response to Savage Run is about the same. Entertaining enough, but it never caught me completely. I think there are two reasons. One is the main character, Joe Pickett. Joe is such a nice, easygoing guy that I just hate seeing put through the wringer as these stories do. I generally like my heroes with bigger teeth.

The second reason, I suspect, is just because they’re outdoor books. As you know if you’ve followed this blog, I’m no outdoorsman. I just don’t identify with people who know how to handle themselves in a forest.

Both these objections—if objections they are—are entirely irrelevant, I think. These very elements are probably among the ones that animate Box’s many fans. Very likely you’re one of them.

Anyway, in this story a radical environmentalist, Stewey Woods, is the victim of a booby-trapped cow, which he encounters in a national forest while he’s out on a tree-spiking expedition. Although everyone assumes Woods was the victim of his own clumsiness while sabotaging a private herd grazing on federal land (one of his eco-causes), game warden Joe Pickett is puzzled by the evidence at the scene. Digging deeper, he crosses a powerful local rancher, and finally comes under the gun of a very dangerous man, a “stock detective” in the mold of the legendary Tom Horn.

Author Box squares the circle pretty neatly in this book. There’s a definite critique of environmental extremism here, but while one of the main Green characters is stereotypically vapid and otherworldly, another comes off as rather admirable. The main bad guy is a big rancher, although I don’t think he’s meant to be typical of that class either.

So it’s a pretty good book, though not among my favorites. I’ll probably read another eventually. I’ve heard an interesting supporting character is due to appear somewhere along the line.

Cautions for language and gore.

Fiction, Religion

Easter in Narnia

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“Oh, children,” said the Lion, “I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, children, catch me if you can!” He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail. Then he made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table. Laughing, though she didn’t know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia, and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind. And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun the girls no longer felt in the least tired or hungry or thirsty.

“And now,” said Aslan presently, “to business. I feel I am going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears.”

Fiction, Religion

Good Friday in Narnia

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Photo credit: Nevit Dilmen



“Please, may we come with you—wherever you are going?” said Susan.

“Well—ʺ said Aslan and seemed to be thinking. Then he said, “I should be glad of your company to-night. Yes, you may come, if you will promise to stop when I tell you, and after that leave me to go on alone.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you. And we will,” said the two girls.

Forward they went again and one of the girls walked on each side of the Lion. But how slowly he walked! And his great, royal head drooped so that his nose nearly touched the grass. Presently he stumbled and gave a low moan.

“Aslan! Dear Aslan!” said Lucy, “what is wrong? Can’t you tell us?”

“Are you ill, dear Aslan?” asked Susan.

“No,” said Aslan. “I am sad and lonely. Lay your hands on my mane so that I can feel you are there and let us walk like that.”

And so the girls did what they would never have dared to do without his permission but what they had longed to do ever since they first saw him—buried their cold hands in the beautiful sea of fur and stroked it and, so doing, walked with him. And presently they saw that they were going with him up the slope of the hill on which the Stone table stood. They went up at the side where the trees came furthest up, and when they got to the last tree (it was one that had some bushes about it) Aslan stopped and said,

“Oh, children, children. Here you must stop. And whatever happens, do not let yourselves be seen. Farewell.”

–C. S. Lewis, Chapter XIV, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

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A Roaring good time

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The lecture last night, I’m happy to report, was excellent. Truly memorable.

The speaker, Roar Moe (ROW-ar MOW-eh), as I remember the story he told, was an ordinary Norwegian guy who worked in an ordinary job. But he was concerned about all the things that were being lost as his country, in the short period since the oil fields were discovered around 1970, has gone from being a poor, largely rural country to a rich, largely urban country. He traveled around the west coast and was horrified by the houses and boathouses left to nature, the boats dragged ashore and left to rot. So he and some friends set about creating a center where the old skills could be preserved and passed on to young people.

The acquired a little farm on a small island and rebuilt the house, the boathouse, and the barn. They first repaired old boats, and then built one of their own (they learned what they could from the old boat builders themselves, but he says it was hard. Those guys don’t like to explain about building boats, they just do it, and expect their helpers to learn by doing. “The eye” is the most important instrument). They run camps for kids, where the kids learn about the old ways and the old skills.

Then they got more ambitious, and built a “jekt,” (yes, the word is related to our English “yacht,” which comes from the Dutch language, I believe) a copy of a small 17th Century cargo vessel. This forced them to learn the art of square sailing, which is tricky.

And that’s what got him involved in the Dragon Harald Fairhair project, which I’ve written about here before. This ship, when completed this summer, will be the largest replica Viking ship ever built, at 140 ft. Roar will be involved in training the crews. Part of the reason he’s here in America is to try to recruit crew members.

Wish I could afford to do that.

In any case, it was one of the most fascinating lectures I’ve ever heard. I got a chance to speak to Mr. Moe a little afterwards, but only a couple words.

Poetry

Czeslaw Milosz, “You Whose Name”

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You whose name is aggressor and devourer.

Putrid and sultry, in fermentation.

You mash into pulp sages and prophets,

Criminals and heroes, indifferently.

My vocativus is useless.

You do not hear me, though I address you,

Yet I want to speak, for I am against you.

So what if you gulp me, I am not yours.

You overcome me with exhaustion and fever.

You blur my thought, which protests,

You roll over me, dull unconscious power.

The one who will overcome you is swift, armed:

Mind, spirit, maker, renewer.

He jousts with you in depths and on high,

Equestrian, winged, lofty, silver-scaled.

I have served him in the investiture of forms.

It’s not my concern what he will do with me.

A retinue advances in the sunlight by the lakes.

From white villages Easter bells resound.

“You Whose Name” by Czeslaw Milosz

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Evolution: Stick to the Facts

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Tennessee may pass a law that protects teachers if they allow or even encourage criticism of evolutionary theories. The governor says, “I think the one thing about that bill is this: Nothing about the curriculum of the state of Tennessee will change, and the scientific standards won’t change. So I think some of the discussion about its impact has probably been overblown.”

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Words in passing

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Just a quick wave as I sweep by tonight. I’m going to a lecture tonight (against my general principle of not going out on weeknights–or any night, come to think of it) to hear a lecture. A man from Norway will be speaking tonight at the University Club in St. Paul, and members of our Viking group were specifically invited. The speaker is an expert on Norwegian square-sailed boats, and is one of the trainers for the crew of the Dragon Harald Fairhair Viking ship project.

My Amazon sales of Troll Valley had a little spike yesterday, probably because of my column at The American Spectator Online. Yes, I watch the figures. And yes, I do esteem my personal worth on the basis of sales figures. Pray for me.