Fiction, Reviews

Nordic Nights, by Lise McClendon

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I have to assume that Lise McClendon, author of Nordic Nights, must be of Norwegian ancestry, partly because “Lise” is the Norwegian way to spell the name, and partly because her wry depictions of Norwegian-American (and genuine Norwegian) characters in this pleasant mystery novel are spot on.

It would be ridiculous to make plagiarism accusations, but I thought the parallels to my own novel (in a different genre), Wolf Time, were remarkable. As in my book, the home town (Jackson Hole, Wyoming here) is visited by a prominent Norwegian cultural figure (here a painter named Glasius Dokken), and the action comes to revolve around the discovery of a rune stone related to the Kensington Rune Stone of Minnesota.

But here the hero is Alix Thorssen, Jackson Hole art gallery owner. She has agreed to help organize the titular Nordic Nights festival, a civic winter celebration. Her own gallery will be the site for the display of an epic set of murals on Viking themes, painted by Dokken. But the first night of the festival, Dokken is murdered in a hotel room (not his own), and Alix’s stepfather is accused of killing him. Alix’s own suspicions lean toward a mysterious fortuneteller from Minnesota who claims to read mystic meanings in runes.

In my experience, mysteries written by women tend to be rather different from mysteries written by men, and I generally avoid the former. I picked this one up because of its Scandinavian themes, and I thought it was both well done and accurate in its research in things Scandinavian (even things Viking). Scandinavian reserve as a character trait is a constant, serio-comic theme. Still, it read like a women’s book to me (I was frequently disturbed by Alix’s disregard for her own safety), so I mainly recommend it for female readers.

Mild cautions for language and sexual situation apply, but most readers (especially female readers) will find a lot to enjoy in Nordic Nights.

Authors

The Shocking Exposé of Long Dead Author, Charles Dickens

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We’re all Dickens all the time, here at BwB. This February 7 will be 200 since Charles Dickens, best known for having many of his work introduced by the renown G.K. Chesterton , and Julia Klein has a biographical summary based on Claire Tomalin’s literary biography, Charles Dickens: A Life. She says Dickens left his wife and family for a young woman names Nelly Ternan, an old claim that has been disputed more recently than in the past. Klein writes,

The award-winning biographer of both Thomas Hardy and Samuel Pepys, Tomalin writes with both force and sympathy about the moral difficulties this must have occasioned for Dickens. The marital rift was bad enough. But Dickens seemingly made matters worse by publicly vilifying his wife, Catherine, and shunning any friends who failed to take his side.

Authors

We are the new nexus of the literary world

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Back in April, I posted a note from our friend Dale Nelson, about a record of a meeting between Dostoevsky and Dickens, which showed up in a recent book.
Since then a lively discussion has been going on in the comments. A couple different contributors have shown up to question the authenticity of that reference. It appears that the published account lacks corroboration, and there are reasons to doubt whether, although Dostoevsky did visit London in 1862, the two men ever actually spoke to one another.
Commenter Robert Newsom conveys the following statement from The Dickens Fellowship’s The Dickensian web site:

“Dickens and Dostoyevsky: A Notice
“In the Winter 2002 issue of The Dickensian (vol 98, pp.233-35) we published an article on Dickens and Dostoyevsky which contained remarks apparently made by Dickens in an interview with Dostoyevsky in London in 1862. The occasion was allegedly recalled by Dostoyevsky in a letter of 1878 which was transcribed in a journal cited by the article’s author. Subsequent researchers have so far not been able to locate the journal cited nor indeed to verify that such a journal exists. The author was the unfortunate victim of a very serious road accident some time ago, and is not in a condition to respond to further enquiries on this issue.
“We are therefore bound to issue a caution that the authenticity of this letter by Dostoyevsky remains to be proven, in spite of the fact that it has gained currency in a number of recent publications on Dickens.”

Mr. Newsom goes on to say, “Michael Slater had previously withdrawn his account of the alleged meeting from the paperback edition of his biography.
“All very mysterious.”
Thanks to everyone who has participated in this illuminating discussion.

Authors

Moderation vs. Swaying Passion

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Perceptions of Dostoevsky are contrasted here with perceptions of George Eliot, both authors contemporaries of the other.

Dostoevsky’s writing is so unstable that it seems to be in a constant state of trembling. Almost every page jitters and quakes with all the anxious ideas and emotions struggling to take possession of the story. The young author who started as a colleague of Petersburg radicals eventually became a reactionary conservative, a Slavophil jingoist with semi-fascist religious views. In modern American terms, he changed from a Vietnam Era hippie into a Born Again Bush-worshipper with a regular rant-show on Fox News.

By contrast:

For George Eliot, on the other hand, Mill and Darwin and Strauss are crucial figures. Her intricate evaluations of their work helped refine her forceful and compassionate mind. She was heavily involved with the Westminster Review, which Mill had edited earlier. Throughout her career, she also joined in the debates over Mill’s On Liberty and his advocacy of women’s rights. She knew Darwin’s ideas early and well. Even before The Origin of Species, she had explored the scientific theories on which evolution was partly built.

I’ll have to think about the apparent bias in this piece, but that’s normal. I cannot criticize these opinion, because I’m out of my depth. (Sure–I probably shouldn’t say that.)

Authors, Fiction

Klavan Releases E-Books

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Another author we know is releasing e-books. Andrew Klavan says several of his out-of-print titles are now going to be available digitally, including Agnes Mallory, “the only non-mystery among them,” which was released in the U.K. but never printed in the U.S.

Uncategorized

I feel stronger already

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How was it that I’ve been on the internet all these years now, and never really noticed Neatorama until today? Where else can you learn vital information like, “How much heavier is your e-book reader after downloading a book?”

Using Einstein’s E=mc² formula, which states that energy and mass are directly related, Prof Kubiatowicz calculated that filling a 4GB Kindle to its storage limit would increase its weight by a billionth of a billionth of a gram, or 0.000000000000000001g.

That’s the basis for my new fitness regimen, right there.

This is supposed to be a beautiful weekend, so I guess I’d better make the most of it. Got some yard work I need to do, and I’m pretty sure there are fewer nice weekends left in 2011 that I care to contemplate. Ideally I should stay in bed again, to kill off this chest thing, but autumn dallies for no man.

Have a good one!

Uncategorized

Have You Ever Cheated Death?

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Tony’s son asked him if he or his brothers had ever “cheated death” without any embarrassment at the possibility that few people used that phrase. Tony reflects on this and the time he has seen death denied its claims.

It reminds me a time recently when I walked around the neighborhood with my daughters, pulling one or two in a wagon and following the others on their bicycles. One of the bikes had poor brakes, so I worried a little about the hills, but not enough. Even now if I dwell on it, I can work up my fear and self-condemnation, thinking of my daughter speeding down a hill, right in front of a truck, and crashing into the grass beyond. How could I be so naive and nonchalant? She couldn’t slow down on that hill, and if she’d crossed the street a second later, she would have hit the truck. That’s one of many ways I could convince myself that I’m a totally fool.

But the Lord has had mercy on me.

Publishing

Will the Foxes spoil the vineyard?

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I feel strange tonight (not because of my bronchial infection, which seems to be clearing up, thank you), but because James Lileks is on Hugh Hewitt’s show, at a blogging convention, joking back and forth with him and various guests, some of them fairly prominent people. And I flash back to the fact that less than a year ago I sat in a radio studio with Lileks myself, joking with him on a lower plane. It somehow doesn’t compute. Something is wrong with this picture, and it’s clearly me.

Big news in Christian publishing this week. Harper Collins, which already owns Zondervan, has acquired Thomas Nelson, creating a sudden behemoth in the world of Christian letters—or perhaps a camel we have to figure out how to maneuver through the eye of a needle. Continue reading Will the Foxes spoil the vineyard? →

Reading

Disliking Reading

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“And so the barriers fell: now nearly everyone in the developed world is literate, there is plenty to read, and reading material is dirt cheap. But still people don’t read. Why? The obvious answer—though one that is difficult for us to admit—is that most people don’t like to read.”

Patrick Kurp agrees with Marshall Poe’s conclusion, quoted above, but disagrees with his rationale. He suggests that if we want more people to read, we should share our own joy of reading.