All posts by Lars Walker

Authors, Religion

‘The Thurber Carnival,’ by James Thurber

Leave a comment

In the early years of the nineteenth century, Columbus won out, as state capital, by only one vote over Lancaster, and ever since then has had the hallucination that it is being followed, a curious municipal state of mind which affects, in some way or other, all those who live there.

I had read bits of it already. I remember finding “The Night the Bed Fell On Father” hilarious when I was a boy. So I looked forward to reading A Thurber Carnival.

To be honest, I found it less funny, and more troubling, than I expected.

James Thurber is a classic American humorist, one of the founding fathers of The New Yorker. Some of his pieces, especially the story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” have become classics. Even legends.

As I worked my way through this collection of essays, stories, and cartoons, I was surprised how dark I found it. Not overtly – there was no obvious self-pity on display here. But I thought I felt the presence of a bitter spirit behind it all.

James Thurber, born in Columbus, Ohio, suffered the loss of an eye in a game of William Tell as a small boy. For the rest of his life, he lived with the fear – then the certainty – that the other eye was going to fail. He lost his sight entirely in the end, a terrible fate for a man of letters. For this reader, that unspoken fear seemed to form a background to everything. Here is not the lightness of Robert Benchley. Here is a humorist cracking wise on the scaffold.

Or so it seemed to me.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m not bright enough to appreciate the sophisticated gags.

Anyway, it’s a classic. You should probably read it. You might enjoy it more than I did.

I should perhaps warn that there’s some casual racism, characteristic of the time but not vicious, in descriptions of black people.

Authors, Fiction, Religion

A friend interviewed

Leave a comment

Dale Nelson, retired professor of English at Mayville State University, North Dakota, is a good friend of mine and one of the more frequent commenters on this blog. He is also a presence in the world of Inklings and fantastic fiction scholarship.

Linked here is a recent interview he gave to the Fellowship & Fairydust web site. The interview actually comes in two parts. This is the first, and deals mainly with horror literature.

A second segment, more about the Inklings, is coming soon. I’ll post that too.

Bookselling, Fiction, Publishing

Paperback woes on a rainy day

Leave a comment

The Norwegian word for “busy” is “travelt,” which always makes me thing of a crowded road. Which is pretty much what I feel like right now. I have a) my “novel writing” work, which currently means formatting books for paperback, b), the magazine I’m editing for the Valdres Samband, the ethnic organization that hired me for this purpose, c) my translation work on the Sigrid Undset biography, and d) the monthly newsletter for my Sons of Norway lodge (which won’t take long but should have been finished by now).

This morning it rained. The first rain we’ve had around here in months. It’s been raining all day, except for when it snowed (alas for the trick-or-treaters!). When I was done with my novel writing this morning, I happened to look outside and found that the first four of my cartons of orphaned books had arrived from Nordskog (see last night’s story). I have an idea the mail carrier was unhappy about being made to carry those heavy cartons, because he left them on the very outside edge of the porch, where the drip from the awning would pour straight down on them.

Some of the cartons were soaking wet; all were damp. I brought them in immediately and freed the books from the cartons. They’re air drying in my living room now, as are the cartons.

Most of the books are fine. A few have covers curled. But I’m getting these things for pennies on the dollar, and don’t expect to outlive the supply anyway.

Ten more cartons arrived this afternoon (perfectly dry, I’m happy to say). Also I finally got my paperback copies of The Elder King from Amazon. I’d been looking forward to that – photo above.

And… I got a surprise. Some moron – and there’s no moron but me on this job – accidentally put the wrong title in the page headers. All the right-hand pages in this edition say at the top that the book is Hailstone Mountain, which it is not.

I wouldn’t have this problem if I’d done the prudent thing and ordered a review copy for myself before releasing it. But I lack the patience. Now I have this.

It’s easily fixed. I’ll republish it tomorrow. Which means the book will be briefly unavailable. The few copies already sold will go down in history as errata, no doubt to become sought-after collectors’ items.

Bookselling, Fiction, Publishing

Start the presses! ‘King of Rogaland’ in paper!

1 Comment

The hits just keep on coming – as many people must have said in the radio business, but I don’t think I ever did, back when I was in the game.

I am forging my way through my Viking books, and can herewith announce that the paperback version of King of Rogaland is now obtainable from Amazon.com. This completes the whole set (sort of, details below), except for the final book, The Baldur Game, which still awaits its cover art.

And then there are the first two books, which present complications of their own.

West Oversea, Book 3 of the series, is in an odd limbo at this juncture. Nordskog, its publisher, is – sadly – going out of business. They have kindly returned all rights to me, and are selling me their entire stock of paperbacks at a steep discount. That’s about 20 cartons at last count. I’ll have my little house packed with them, I guess, which is (I think) the final stage of deterioration in a self-published author’s life cycle. I’m working now at formatting the book for an Amazon version of my own. I think selling this stock of Nordskog paperbacks through Amazon would create a distribution challenge for which I’m not equipped. So I’ll just create a fresh one, and sell my Nordskog volumes at Viking events. I expect they should last me another 40 years or so.

And then there’s The Year of the Warrior. I’m currently getting the paper version printed by a private printer, but I’m going to try to get that one out through Amazon too. I think it’ll be cheaper, but the juxtaposition of Baen’s electronic version with my paperback will, I have no doubt, raise unanticipated problems.

We suffer for our art in many ways. This is not one of the worst. Yet.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Green Ripper,’ by John D. MacDonald

Leave a comment

Death comes while you are struggling with your application or lack of application of the Judeo-Christian ethic. While you work out the equation which says, If I don’t kill him, he will kill me, so even if I have been taught not to kill, this is an exception—while you are working that out, he is blowing chunks of bone out of your skull. The quick and the dead is an ancient allusion. They were quick and I was quick and lucky.

I always knew it was coming. Even when this book first came out (and I read it back then) I had to expect that when John D. MacDonald gave his hero Travis McGee the girl of his dreams, a big, healthy, well-balanced woman who seemed to be made for him, he would have to kill her off in the next book. (The author is the true villain of every story.) And so it was. The Green Ripper is the darkest and saddest of the Travis McGee series, and incidentally a harbinger of what future detective fiction would be.

Gretel Tuckerman, Trav’s new woman, has taken a job at a property development and health spa near Fort Lauderdale. One day she notices a stranger on the grounds, and recognizes him from a brief encounter years ago in California. A couple days later she is dead, apparently the victim of a rare disease carried by an insect bite.

But before long, a stricken McGee and his friend Meyer get a visit from some government agents with questions. Thanks to Meyer’s security clearance, they get to ask a few questions of their own. It appears there’s a terrorist network within the US, connected to a secretive religious cult in California. It was Gretel’s misfortune to recognize one of its members, and apparently they murdered her by clandestine means.

This is where McGee goes underground. He assumes a new identity, that of a working fisherman with a drinking problem, headed to California to find his daughter, whom he believes joined the cult. He will find the cult. He will join them. Get to know them. Make friends.

And he will get terrible revenge.

Here, I believe, we see the genesis of the detective thriller as we know it today – the Jack Reacher and Gray Man books and others in the same vein, some better, some not so good. Most Travis McGee books are about the mystery, the problem, with a generous helping of violence thrown in. Today, most detective series are primarily about the violence, with just enough of a mystery to hold the plot together.

As an old fogy, I generally find the older way more enjoyable. And as far as I recall, MacDonald never again went as far into ultra-violence as he did in this story. It’s not that I judge The Green Ripper a bad novel, it’s just that the combination of grief and vengeance makes it a downer.

Also, Meyer, supposedly a genius, makes a lot of economic predictions in this book that haven’t played out well in the real world. On the other hand, we have here an object lesson about avoiding religious groups run by women.

So, not my favorite Travis McGee. But it’s a great series.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Sentence is Death,’ by Anthony Horowitz

Leave a comment

I like and respect the English author Anthony Horowitz, but I’m less than in love with his Hawthorne and Horowitz books. The premise seems to be an interesting twist on the old Holmes & Watson formula – Hawthorne is a former police detective who has persuaded Horowitz, as an author, to accompany him on private investigations and write about them, with the profits divided. Horowitz shoehorns the stories (apparently) into his actual life circumstances. The Sentence is Death takes place, ostensibly, during the period when Horowitz was a writer for the Foyle’s War TV series.

In this story, the police have asked Hawthorne to consult on a murder investigation. A celebrity divorce lawyer has been murdered in his kitchen, bludgeoned with an expensive bottle of wine. Of course, the victim does not lack for enemies who might have wanted him dead, but there is also a broader range of suspects, some related to a caving accident he was involved in years back. Oddly enough, one of the other survivors of that accident died under mysterious circumstances within a few days of the murder. Also, why did somebody paint a number on the kitchen wall?

There’s nothing wrong with the writing The Sentence Is Death, nor with the characters or the plotting. It’s just that author Horowitz has labored to create a Sherlock Holmes-style character who seems to embody most of Holmes’ annoying characteristics and none of his charm. Hawthorne is surly, secretive, and thoughtless. He himself becomes part of the ongoing mystery, as Horowitz tries to figure out who this guy is and where he came from – a project with which Hawthorne cooperates not at all. Frankly, I do not like Hawthorne, and find him bad company.

Also, I must admit I figured out whodunnit this time. This is not because of my genius as a detective, but because I’ve gotten to where I can (sometimes) recognize the tricks authors use to divert our attention from serious suspects.

Still, The Sentence is Death is a well-done book. My reservations are all personal. So you should discount for that.

Music, Religion

‘Day By Day’

Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any Sissel Kyrkjebø music. Here we have a Swedish hymn called “Day By Day.” (Not to be confused with the song “Day By Day” from the musical “Godspell.” Which is… a different song.) This is Sissel at the start of her career, when she was singing on Norwegian television.

It was written by Carolina (Lina) Sandell (1832-1903), a beloved Swedish hymn writer. Even we Norwegians loved her hymns. She started writing, we are told, in part to deal with her shock after watching the drowning death of her father. The Swedish evangelist Carl O. Rosenius featured many her hymns in his services, which increased their popularity.

The lyrics go (in English):

Day by day, God’s gracious love surrounds me
As a balm to soothe my troubled heart.
Countless cares and worries that confound me
Fade away or quietly depart,
For His heart is kind beyond all measure,
And He comforts us as He knows best.
Ev’ry day, with all its pain and pleasure,
Mingles tears with peace and rest.

Day by day, the Lord is ever near me,
Granting loving mercies for each hour,
And my care He gladly bears, and cheers me
With His counsel pure and holy pow’r.
I’ll not fear for what may come tomorrow,
Though the path ahead I cannot see.
He assures that in all joy or sorrow,
“As thy days, thy strength shall be.”

Help me rest in quiet consolation.
Help me trust Thy promises, O Lord.
When I’m faced with daily tribulation,
Help me find the strength to live Thy word.
Then, dear Lord, when toil and trouble find me,
Hold me steadfast in Thy pow’rful hand.
Day by day, Thy strength will bear me kindly
Till I reach the promised land.

This, I might mention, is not the translation I’m familiar with. I blame the liberals.

Publishing, Writing

Hobgoblins of my mind

Leave a comment
Avaldsnes Church (my photo). The dark shape toward the left end of the nave is the last remaining standing stone. They call it “The Virgin Mary’s Sewing Needle.”

Tonight’s topic is one I’ve been thinking about ever since I began formatting my novels for paperback. The fact that I’ve forgotten about this topic every evening when the time came to compose a post probably says something about me personally – specifically about my reluctance to admit my mistakes.

Because my mistakes are my topic.

Specifically, my inconsistencies.

In my books.

Emerson (who knew something of suffering, since his parents named him Ralph Waldo) famously said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” This has given great comfort, over a couple centuries, to many people looking for excuses.

Which brings us to me.

One thing (one of many) that has bedeviled me over the years, as I’ve worked on my Erling Saga, was a sneaking suspicion that I was describing things differently in different books. I have avoided this problem by assiduously refraining from re-reading them. But the process of formatting for paperback has forced me to read each of them, and I’ve discovered that my fears were justified.

Shall I share some of the inconsistencies? Will that depress others as much as it depresses me?

Be strong, and read on if you dare.

The character of King Olaf’s marshal, Bjorn (the sagas do not give us his father’s name; I had to make one  up for him), is described as dark-haired on his first appearance. In King of Rogaland he is suddenly fair-haired and bald.

Closer to my heart are the standing stones at Augvaldsness (Avaldsnes) on Kormt (Karmøy) island. This, as I’ve explained more often than you care to recall, is the location of my great-grandfather’s home church. Only one of those standing stones still stands today, but originally there was an array of five. In one of the Erling books (I think it was The Elder King, but I’m already not sure) I said only two of those stones were standing at the time, and the others were just stumps. But in King of Rogaland, based on a reconstruction of the Viking Age farm from Norway, I put all five up again, adding a lame excuse that Ailill’s memory is vague, and he thinks the magic of the place has affected his perception.

And now I have to live with it.

Well, if Conan Doyle could live with forgetting where Dr. Watson got his wound in Afghanistan, I can probably live with these things. It’ll give future Walker scholars something to debate. Or laugh about.

Reading, Uncategorized

The Lobster and the looming shadow…

4 Comments
Photo credit: @felipepelaquem. Unsplash license.

I should probably caution you that I’m about to talk about where I ate lunch. This troubles me, as I remember (vaguely) from my youth (long ago) that old people were always talking about where they ate lunch, and it was an incredible bore. I honestly make an effort not to be a bore, but genetics are against me.

I assure you, though, that the story does get bizarre. Not bizarre in a truly surprising way, but bizarre enough to write about on a day when I don’t have a book to review for you.

If you’re into middlebrow dining, you may be aware of the recent closures of many Red Lobster restaurants. It appears their attempt to drum up business by offering unlimited all-you-can-eat shrimp didn’t pay off in the long run. Shrimp does not, it would seem, provide an effective loss leader.

So they closed “my” Red Lobster in Golden Valley (yes, we have a suburb called Golden Valley near me). This has weighed heavily on my mind, because in my world Red Lobster constitutes pretty fine dining. I liked going there occasionally, when my wallet permitted. Me and my Amazon Fire, that’s a big date in my universe.

So today I drove to the RL closest to my location, way the heck up in Fridley (I think. Google Maps doesn’t actually tell you what town you’re in. Ever notice that?). It was almost identical to the Golden Valley place. Which is not, I suppose, surprising.

And I had the Wednesday special, and the waitress was polite, and I enjoyed it. Me and my Amazon Fire enjoying virtual face time.

As I left the restaurant, I dropped my Fire. I may have muttered some mild – but neither obscene nor blasphemous – expletive.

I picked it up and looked at it. One of the corners on the protective case I’d bought years ago had broken off. But that’s OK. It still has support on 3 corners and does not require replacement.

I came home, and went to work on my translating. A couple hours ago I took a short break and reclined on the couch. I opened my Android phone and happened to select the Amazon app.

The first thing I saw was an ad for protective covers for Kindle devices.

You know those horror movies, where people see obvious foreshadowings of impending, apocalyptic evil, and the characters ignore them, and you say, “Can’t you see it coming? Are you stupid?”

I think I understand those characters better now.

Uncategorized, Writing

Writer’s update: Dwindling into fall

Leave a comment
Photo credit: Jeremy Thomas, jeremythomasphoto. Unsplash license.

And here we are. Autumn. A beautiful season, of which I’ve never been very fond. Because – in spite of its initial glorious beauty – it always degenerates into winter, getting colder and darker and more monochrome as the days pass. It’s like an annual reminder of aging and…

No, no, no. Let us not go there. Normal people like autumn. Or fall. (In Norwegian they call it høst, which means harvest.) Why should I rain on their colored leaves?

Viking season is over, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I like Viking season. The string of reenactment events, slightly different every summer, in which I set up my Viking tent and sell my literary works. The Mankato event capped off a pretty heavy October – from Minot to Green Bay, to Moorhead (not a Viking thing, but a not insignificant drive), and then Mankato. I like it, but it gets harder every year. I’m ready to have my weekends back – not that I get to rest on Saturdays. It’s prime time for writing and translating. But at least I’ll be off the road.

So, back to the regular routine. Working on novels in the early morning. Working on the Norwegian heritage magazine I edit in the later morning. Translation in the afternoons and evenings.

I listen to music when novel writing, but for the other stuff I need old TV. For some reason. Sometimes I like to have old movies on (mostly black and white mysteries), but it’s nice to find a TV series I can binge. Just the right level of distraction if I want it, and ignore-ability if I don’t. I found “Newhart” on Amazon Prime. Just the thing.

Note that I’m talking about “Newhart,” where Bob runs an inn in Vermont, not “The Bob Newhart Show” where he was a psychologist in Chicago. For some reason I never like “TBNS.” I suspect I’m too neurotic to enjoy jokes about neurotics. “Newhart” is just surreal, and no threat even to me.

Currently I’m still in the first season, where the show hasn’t found its footing yet. I personally loved that first season – I liked the character of Kirk, the café owner, who had an honesty problem: “I’m a habitual liar… No, that’s not true.”

And I liked the character of Leslie Vanderkellen, the rich girl they hired as the maid, for some reason. She was played by a very attractive actress named Jennifer Holmes. In the second season, the producers decided to go full Salvadore Dali, replacing Kirk with Larry, Darrel, and Darrel. And Leslie with Julia Duffy as Stephanie, the rich girl with no working skills whatever. It all became increasingly bizarre, and funny on a new level. It worked, I’ll admit, and I relished it.

But I always felt sorry for Jennifer Holmes. She did nothing wrong. She was great in the part they wrote for her. And then they dumped her for a new concept. She’s still working as an actress, according to IMDb, but her career since has been fairly obscure.

It occurs to me that – essentially – they turned the show into a version of “Green Acres.” Which I always hated. (Because, I think, I was self-conscious, as a country boy, about seeing country people caricatured.) But I love “Newhart.”

I’m not sure why.

No, wait. I think it might have something to do with Mary Frann.