First off, my prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims of the Virginia Tech atrocity. Commenter Aitchmark tells me that one of his good friends is an instructor there. According to the last message I got from him, his friend would appear to be all right. But lots of other people’s friends weren’t so lucky, and there are just no words to say except that we are thinking of them and lifting them up to God.
The news didn’t match the weather, at least not here. It was an exquisite day. Seventy degrees. Last Monday it was winter. Today it was summer. It’s enough to give you whiplash.
I had a busy weekend. On Saturday my new renter moved in. So far he’s been the perfect tenant—he’s hardly been here at all. He brought three carloads of stuff in on Saturday, and then I didn’t see him again. I didn’t see him on Sunday, but while I was gone he seems to have brought some more in. Today, nothing as far as I can tell. I don’t have a number to call to check on him. Hope everything’s all right.
On Sunday I did one of my Viking PowerPoints for the Norwegian Federation in St. Paul. It’s a Norwegian-American friendship organization. They fed me a nice lunch, laughed at my jokes, bought a good number of books and promise to send a gratuity check. I have no complaints. On top of that the meeting was held at Luther Seminary, so I can now put “Lecturer, Luther Theological Seminary” on my resume. (I’m joking, I’m joking.)
When I got home I was pretty wiped out, as I usually am after public speaking engagements. But the day was so gorgeous I forced myself to go out for a walk, bribing myself by designating the local Dairy Queen the terminus of my route. There were two long lines strung out in front of the place (it’s one of the old-fashioned ones where you stand outside). Minnesotans have a lot of pent up cabin fever to work off right now. I think if the Blizzard machine had broken down, it might have gotten ugly.
I finished Excalibur, the final book of The Warlord Chronicles trilogy by Bernard Cornwell, on Saturday. I think I have rarely both enjoyed and disliked a book so much.
I enjoyed it as a drama and an action book. The battle scenes were outstanding, particularly the Battle of Camlan, Arthur’s last battle. As I read it, I couldn’t help thinking, “I can’t believe that someone could figure out a fresh, exciting way to do Camlan, after all the times it’s been done before.” But Cornwell achieves that. He mixes action, suspense, pathos and lyricism in a way I only wish I could emulate.
What I disliked was the general picture of religion in general, and Christianity in particular. Cornwell seems to hold the view of the average “sensible” Briton today, that religion is all well and good, but all you really need is a little simple humanity, because religion tends to get out of hand.
Cornwell clearly isn’t promoting heathenism. Although his narrator is a heathen (through most of the book, and always in his heart), Cornwell pictures the old gods of Britain as cruel and bloody. They are, however, powerful.
Christianity, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have any inherent power at all. The great advances it makes in this story are all due to the priests telling lies and extorting conversions.
Cornwell’s position, it seems to me, is the very one that’s killing Europe. “If we’re just sensible, practical agnostics, everything will be fine. We can counter militant Islam through our enlightened culture and comfortable lifestyle. We don’t need to believe anything ourselves to defend our civilization from holy war.”
Sorry. I’m obsessed with Europe these days.
Anyway, I give Excalibur high marks as a novel, low marks in the culture wars.
Addendum: I forgot to mention he puts horns on the Saxons’ helmets. This is an egregious fault for which I can think of no excuse.