All posts by Phil

Blogs, Socials, Fiction

The Wheel of Time Calls Roadside Assistance

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Until this week, I knew next to nothing about Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. I knew it was very long and that some people loved it. I did not know that Jordan was rewriting The Lord of the Rings and that the first of fourteen novels, The Eye of the World, was meant to be his version of The Fellowship of the Ring.

One Goodreads reviewer writes of the first book, “It is difficult to comprehend how an author could take such a simple, familiar story and stretch it out over so many pages.

The hero is an orphan who looks different, he gets his father’s magic sword, he goes on a quest with an old, wily mentor, gets attacked by evil (dark-skinned) mongoloids from the mysterious East, meets the princess by accident, becomes embroiled in an ancient prophecy, discovers a magic ‘force’ which controls fate (and the plot), &c., &c.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. 

Of the second book, another reviewer praises the overall story but recommends reading with friends to help get through the boring parts. “Jordan’s prose was super wordy and descriptive, there’s no way around it. Two books (570k words in total so far) into the series and when it comes to the actual story progression, not too much have actually progressed.”

A reviewer of eighth book notes he would have included a plot summary, but the book has no plot or development at all.

Because many TV producers want to create the next Game of Thrones, Amazon released last year an eight-episode series based on The Eye of the World, and it appears that they have done a terrible job.

Man Carrying Things reviews it in about an hour, noting some strong weaknesses in the scriptwriting such as frequent deaths that are undone a minute later. Another reviewer appeals to the book lore to say this is supposed to be a very bad move done only by evil magicians, but there’s no indication this show has that in mind. In fact, the show seems to have cliched TV formulas most in mind. It lacks continuity within single episodes. It spends too much time on exposition that doesn’t develop anything.

One major change from the source material is questioning who the chosen one–the Dragon Reborn–is among the main characters. The book tells us upfront, but the show says it could be anyone, and as a result, doesn’t explain what being the Dragon Reborn would mean. It’s apparently an open question whether this is good or bad. Maybe the writers couldn’t pull themselves away from a desire to drive the story toward a character saying, “Maybe the real Dragon Reborn were the friends we made along the way.”

Photo by Hannah Morgan on Unsplash

Non-fiction

A Comic Explains an Important History Principle

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It’s good to see C.S. Lewis’s influence out in the wild.

Karolina Żebrowska is a comic YouTuber who focuses on historic fashion, how some of ye olden times come through in movies, and poking fun at various historic facts. One of her hobby horses is the fact women did wear corsets and it wasn’t an oppression they tolerated because they could handle the pain (she touches on that here). She’s smart and amusing.

I share the video below because she mentions C.S. Lewis’s common-sense notion of chronological snobbery, which she may have gotten off of Wikipedia, but it still counts.

A funny look at wrong history beliefs by Karolina Żebrowska

And just a little more on chronological snobbery from Karl Barth:

But what else can this mean but that it was in the eighteenth century that man began to axiomatically to credit himself with being superior to the past, and assumed a standpoint in relation to it whence he found it possible to set himself up as a judge over past events according to fixed principles, as well as to describe its deeds and to substantiate history’s own report? And the yardstick of these principles, at least as applied by the typical observer of history living at that age, has the inevitable effect of turning that judgment of the past into an extremely radical one. For the yardstick is quite simply the man of the present with his complete trust in his own powers of discernment and judgment, with his feeling for freedom, his desire for intellectual conquest, his urge to form and his supreme moral self-confidence.

Music

Sunday Singing: O Be Joyful in the Lord

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This song differs from the usual congregational singing I share on Sundays. It’s a gorgeous arrangement of Psalm 100 with a few benedictory words at the end.

Here is the lyric as rendered in a 1982 Episcopal hymnal. I’ve always found the last verse to be marvelously triumphant music that should fill the earth.

O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands;
serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with a song. [Ant.]

2. Be ye sure that the Lord he is God;
it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. [Ant.]

3. O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise;
be thankful unto him and speak good of his Name. [Ant.]

4. For the Lord is gracious;
his mercy is everlasting;
and his truth endureth from generation to generation. [Ant.]

5. Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and
will be for ever. Amen. 

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Goofing, Poetry

When ‘Brunch’ Was New, the Limits of Science, and Worthless Commercials

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Something inspired me to look up a distinct definition for the word brunch the other day, and I happened upon this piece from Punch magazine in 1896. Merriam-Webster says the earliest brunch is believed to have appeared in print in 1894, and this aligns with that claim.

“According to the Lady, to be fashionable nowadays, we must “brunch.” Truly an excellent portmanteau word, introduced, by the way, by Mr. Guy Beringer, in the now defunct Hunter’s Weekly, and, indicating a combined breakfast and lunch. At Oxford, however, two years ago, an important distinction was drawn. The combination-meal, when nearer the usual breakfast hour, is “brunch,” and, when nearer luncheon, is “blunch.” Please don’t forget this. 

Tis the voice of the bruncher., I heard him complain,  
“You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again!  
When the clock says it’s 12, then perhaps I’ll revive,  
Meanwhile, into bed, yet once more let me dive! 

“The last meal I had was 3:00 AM.;  
I’m a writer, so please don’t such habits condemn!  
This cross between supper and breakfast I’ll name,  
If you’ll let me, a ‘suckfast’ –and ‘brupper’ ‘s the same!”

It goes on to lesser effect. What else do we have?

Lewis on Science: C.S. Lewis understood the limitations of science better than many scientists. Michael Ward writes:

What is frost to someone who has never encountered it? What is a degree of frost? Ordinary language would be more helpful in explaining the situation: “Your ears will ache … you’ll lose the feeling in your fingers” etc. The word numb will convey more than any number.

However, what Keats tries to convey in his poem can’t be rendered as a thermometer reading. It is not univocal or universal; we can’t translate his poem into, say, Japanese without loss or at least alteration. And yet if we want to know just what it feels like to go outside and breathe the bitterly chill January night air, Keats paints for us a very vivid and sensible picture. He communicates knowledge to us that the ordinary and scientific ways of speaking leave out.

In other words, poetry is a kind of knowledge, and since knowledge is a synonym for science we could quite legitimately say – if we wanted to – that poetry is a branch of science. 

“Numb and Numb-er,” by Michael Ward, Plough.com

Lewis on Science-Fiction: Lewis wrote about science-fiction a good bit and broke it down into several genre categories.

Poetry: How Fame Fed on Edna St. Vincent Millay

And this video by Rachel Oates, “Atticus Is Everything Wrong With Modern Poetry,” is an amusing criticism of a published writer who appears to have turned his Instagram posts into a paper-published thing.

Commercials: “If I were endowed with wealth, I should start a great advertising campaign in all the principal newspapers. The advertisements would consist of one short sentence, printed in huge block letters — a sentence that I once heard spoken by a husband to a wife: ‘My dear, nothing in this world is worth buying.’ But of course I should alter ‘my dear’ to ‘my dears.’”

Photo: The Big Shoe, Bakersfield, California. 2003. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Uncategorized

Why Can’t a Woman Be Like a Man?

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I don’t intend to paint a target on my back by blogging on this subject, but by way of setting up this video for you, let me give you my summation of biblical manhood and womanhood. Many whole books have been written on this subject with ministries and study series to boot. You may know names of go-to people on this issue, and I don’t want to draw any fire from them or their tribal warriors. I just want to give a succinct summation of what I believe the Bible says about Christian men and women.

When people talk about biblical manhood or womanhood, they often want to know the distinctives, not what a biblically minded people look like, but what a distinctly biblical man or woman looks like. On these distinctives, the Bible says few little. Who of the two is to seek first the kingdom of God? Who is to build a house upon the rock and not the sand? Who is bear the fruit of the Spirit, walk as a child of light, and put on the whole armor of God? Both men and women should do this.

In short, both biblical men and biblical women should be maturing, faithful believers. That’s 90% of the subject in a few words. There’s a small handful of particulars to sort out in the remaining 10%, but in a context of mutual respect, these things should work out without much fuss.

But today, we have pastors composing lists on being a man that include inanities such as pulling your pants up and avoiding flip-flops. For many years, we’ve had teachers use the Bible’s instructions on wives being submissive to their husbands to say woman should submit to men in general, even to strangers on the street. That’s not biblical in the least.

Before I start ranting and committing the same sins I’m calling out, let me segue to this video, in which The Observer begins with comments on Galadriel’s presentation in the new Lord of the Rings series and continues with the essence of femininity and how feminists seem to hate it. She says the feminists are the ones asking why women can’t be more like men.

Disclaimer: The host, Galatea, isn’t defending biblical womanhood and gets profane at times, but the video’s amusing on the whole and her points are solid.

Fiction

Penguin Is Recording All Discworld Books in New Audio Series

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Penguin Books UK is releasing a new, cohesive audiobook series of all 41 books in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. The video here will show you who’s involved and how much work everyone is doing to pull this off.

I can’t quite tell what’s available yet, but the first book, The Colour of Magic, will be released at the end of July 2022. Look over all the books, including all print and digital editions, on Penguin’s website.

Music

Sunday Singing: Softly and Tenderly

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“Softly and Tenderly” performed by the Altar of Praise Chorale

Today’s hymn published in 1880 by the composer himself, Will L. Thompson (1847-1909) of Ohio. A member of the Church of Christ, Thompson started his own business to sell his music and later pianos, instruments, and other sheet music.

This performance by the Altar of Praise Chorale skips the third verse, which may be darker than some ministers want.

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
passing from you and from me;
shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming,
coming for you and for me. 

Come home, come home;
you who are weary come home;
earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
calling, O sinner, come home!

Blogs, Socials, Reviews

Reviewing Books on the Socials, Wuthering Heights, and Disney Nightmares

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All the faults of Jane Eyre … magnified a thousand fold

from The North British Review, 1847

A reviewer for a Scottish magazine, The North British Review, used the words above to dismiss Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. He didn’t believe the work would find a broad audience, but as the Narrator says, “Little did he know.”

The Examiner called it “strange.”

We detest the affectation and effeminate frippery which is but too frequent in the modern novel, and willingly trust ourselves with an author who goes at once fearlessly into the moors and desolate places, for his heroes; but we must at the same time stipulate with him that he shall not drag into light all that he discovers, of coarse and loathsome, in his wanderings …

The Spectator seemed to think it a well-written but ugly story. “The success is not equal to the abilities of the writer; chiefly because the incidents are too coarse and disagreeable to be attractive, the very best being improbable, with a moral taint about them …”

And yet Brontë’s book endures. (I found these reviews on a site dedicated to the book.)

Book reviewing takes many forms today. A few weeks ago, an executive at Barnes and Noble noted upswings in sales according to the buzz on TikTok, which they call BookTok. Some authors have linked the success of a book to single BookTok videos.

On YouTube, reviewers call themselves Booktubers. Occasionally I think about recording videos or doing a podcast in order to boost this blog, but I have yet to justify the time. Anyone can jump into the video side of social media, and I think I have a good voice for it. But it takes a certain talent and good lighting to gain attention, not to mention all the visuals and actually having something to say.

Merphy Napier appears to be doing it right. Here she talks about books that live up to their hype, a follow-up to a video about hyped books she didn’t like.

Petrick Leo asked his network to nominate overrated fantasy series, talked over five of them, and shared his own list of five.

Elliot Brooks talks about good adult fantasy series with soft magic systems and hard magic systems.

Disney Nightmares: Speaking of fantasy, Helen Freeh talks about reasons parents should have been wary of Disney long before now.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s excellent essay, “On Fairy Stories,” addresses the very problem that Disney had from its inception: the notion that fairy stories are exclusively children’s stories. They are not. They are stories allowing adults to examine the world from a new perspective to find a better way to live. Tolkien asserts that people connect “the minds of children and fairy- stories,” but “this is an error; at best an error of false sentiment, and one that is therefore most often made by those who, for whatever private reason (such as childlessness), tend to think of children as a special kind of creature, almost a different race, rather than as normal, if immature, members of a particular family, and of the human family at large.”

Elsewhere in shared videos, a view of the side of Glastonbury Tor in Somerset.

Music

Sunday Singing: My Worth Is Not in What I Own

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“My Worth Is Not in What I Own” performed by Fernando Ortega & Kristyn Getty

The song today was written in 2014 by modern hymn writers Keith and Kristyn Getty along with Graham Kendrick. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s one to know with other classics.

I’ll repeat the first two verses here. The rest are on the Getty’s YouTube page.

My worth is not in what I own
Not in the strength of flesh and bone
But in the costly wounds of love
At the cross

My worth is not in skill or name
In win or lose, in pride or shame
But in the blood of Christ that flowed
At the cross

Blogs, Socials, Non-fiction, Religion

What of Our Deeds Will Matter for Long, Statesmen, and Blogroll

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“Death, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing,
                           Nothing but bones,
      The sad effect of sadder groans:
Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing.”
from “Death” by George Herbert

A handful of life paths — intellectual and artistic work in particular — are about trying to create, as Horace wrote, “a monument more lasting than bronze.” They are a calculated gamble that a life dedicated to the difficult and narrow path will continue after our death, however unrewarding it might have been to experience.

But that we even have Horace’s poetry to read is as much a caprice of fate as a function of his poetic virtue. Some manuscripts survive the collapse of civilization, others do not; it seems unlikely that these survivals and disappearances precisely track merit. We have Horace and we are missing most of Sappho.

It’s Very Unlikely Anyone Will Read This in 200 Years (via Prufrock)

Statesmen: A review of The Statesman as Thinker: Portraits of Greatness, Courage, and Moderation by Daniel J. Mahoney. “The best politician employs the intellectual and moral virtues and ‘all the powers of the soul,’ with proper humility and deference to divine and moral law, to better the community.” Has anyone in this generation or last done this? Have we lost this type of man for a while?

Racism: Albert Camus has something to teach us about anti-racism in his book The Fall. “The Fall operates as a reverse confessional with the priest as the penitent who, rather than seeking absolution, wants only to implicate us in his guilt. With this inverted symbol Camus recognizes that power often wears a priestly frock.”

Abolition of Man: Do you think you understand Lewis’s Abolition of Man? Here’s some help. “Through Ward’s page-by-page, sometimes line-by-line, and occasionally word-by-word exegesis of Abolition, we discover the wide plethora of sources upon which Lewis drew to critique his opponents as well as to appeal to Western and non-Western thinkers who have maintained confidence in reason’s capacity to know moral truth.”

Evil: A review of Sarah Weinman’s Scoundrel: “The moral of this tragic story is that people are often too trusting of criminals professing their innocence, and ignore the reality of human nature: Evil exists. Heinous crimes don’t commit themselves.”

Christian Living: What do believers need today? We need power.

Photo: Brooklyn Hotel, closed. Brooklyn, Iowa. 2003. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.