All posts by Lars Walker

Non-fiction, Publishing, Reviews, The Press

Sacramone on ‘God, the Bestseller’

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Over at Gene Edward Veith’s Cranach blog (which is, lamentably, paywalled), he linked today to Anthony Sacramone’s review at acton.org of Stephen Prothero’s God, the Bestseller: How One Editor Transformed American Religion a Book at a Time. (I’ll let you order it, if you like, from the review. I came to praise Sacramone, not to pick his pocket.) I had never heard of the book’s subject, Eugene Exman:

… “who ran the religion book department at Harper & Brothers and then Harper & Rowe between 1928 and 1965,” and who published some of the most recognizable names in the world of religion (and quasi religion) of that period, from Harry Emerson Fosdick and Albert Schweitzer to Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., and Bill Wilson, co-founder of AA.

…if there’s one phrase that’s repeated mantra-like in God the Bestseller it’s “hidebound dogma” (note the modifier). The books Exman would publish at the helm of Harper and Rowe’s religion division would seek that which transcended mere doctrine, a “perennial philosophy,” as Aldous Huxley’s own bestseller would be called—a common thread that supposedly runs through all religions, tying the earthly to the heavenly, matter to the spirit.

Exman, raised a Baptist, had an intense spiritual experience, but it led him, not into the Bible or orthodoxy, but into a generalized search for spiritual truth, which he believed he could find in all faiths.

His greatest star was Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a hugely influential writer in his time, almost forgotten today (a fact which gives me hope for the future). I once borrowed a book on the life of St. Paul from my elementary school library. My mother noticed that Fosdick was the author, and cautioned me against it. This was wise. I did notice a tendency to downplay the supernatural.

As a short history of the American religious publishing game in the mid-20th century, and the signal role one man… played in that history, virtually transforming what passed for religion in the broader reading public’s imagination, Stephen Prothero does yeoman’s work in God the Bestseller. Anyone in the publishing trade will find this an enjoyable, if somewhat repetitive, read.

Music, Religion

Once upon a time in an epic

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Nothing to review tonight. I’ve had the misfortune to start reading two books in a row that I had to give up on due to lousy writing. Too painful to finish, even for the base pleasure of shredding them in reviews. And a third, which I just started, is looking a little dubious… (Fortunately, I got these books free or at very low cost through online deals, so my cost was minimal.)

I had a topic all teed up for blogging about, though. Entirely trivial and haphazard. And then I watched the video above, and it sparked some actual thoughts.

I do love Once Upon a Time in the West (except for the massacre at the beginning). It’s a case study in what you can achieve through blending visuals with music. The movie has been called operatic, and its effect has been lodged under my skin ever since I saw it in a theater back in 1969, when it was new. It’s even affected my novel writing – I try to mix poetry in with my big dramatic scenes, striving for the same kind of sublimity.

But it occurred to me to wonder about Charles Bronson’s character, known only as “Harmonica.” In the scene you see above, Jill (Claudia Cardinale) makes it about as obvious as she can (I think even I would have picked up on the hints) that she wants him to stay with her. But no, he’s gotta be on his way. Gotta ride off into the sunset, in the tradition of the Western hero (I think it has something to do with Manifest Destiny). Sergio Leone was explicitly doing homage to Western movie traditions here, and riding off alone, like Shane, is definitely part of that tradition.

But – in terms of this story – why? Why is Harmonica leaving? Up to now, his whole life has been devoted to a single goal – getting his revenge on the evil Frank (Henry Fonda). Now he’s finished that job. He’s got the whole rest of his life before him. Here’s an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of building a railroad town. Not a bad job. Not to mention THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE throwing herself at him. Why not stick around a day or two, just to see if it could work out?

I suppose Cheyenne (Jason Robards) explains it, when he tells Jill that men like Harmonica have got something inside them – “something about death.” Maybe Harmonica has killed too much. Maybe he’s got PTSD, and has lost his sense of belonging anywhere.

Then I pondered epics in general. In epic terms, I think we could say Harmonica is already dead. It’s the epic hero’s job to die at the end, like Beowulf. Like Hector. The very concept of the epic involves a battle with death – a battle no man can win. Epics teach us how to die.

And that’s a mythopoeic thing. The epic hero, in a dim and reflected way, foreshadows the great Hero of the Gospel. The epic hero may have no virtues at all except for courage – like Harmonica and Siegfried the Dragon Slayer – but his iron refusal to let Death break his spirit anticipates Christ passing through Death and finishing the job at which all the others have failed – killing the Great Enemy.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Wood’s Reach,’ by Steven Becker

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As I’ve confessed before, I seem irrationally compelled to be forever searching for another fictional detective to fill the gap left behind by John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee. So when I discovered there was a series character named Mac Travis, who’s involved with boats and lives in Florida, my old obsession could not be stifled. Steven Becker’s Mac Travis, hero of Wood’s Reach, however, is nothing like Travis McGee (though the name choice has to be intentional). I hope my disappointment didn’t sour my attitude to the book.

Travis McGee, for all his coolness, was essentially the ultimate Peter Pan, a boy who never grew up. He took responsibility as he took his retirement – in installments. He cared deeply about his clients (often damsels in distress) for the duration of his cases, but never took on the burdens of conventional family life.

Steven Becker’s Mac Travis is the diametric opposite. The owner of a struggling diving business, he frets over his debts and yearns for the woman he loves, who has decided they have no future. When an unethical fortune hunter offers Mac a lot of money to help him find a fabled treasure site, he feels as if he has no choice but to take the job. But when he realizes the kind of deal he’s signed up for, Mac starts planning to plunder the plunderer.

I’ve often said that I like boat stories, which was another reason I should have relished Wood’s Reach. But somehow it didn’t work for me. Maybe it’s sailboating stories I actually like. This book mainly involved people rushing around in power boats, alternately pursuing and fleeing from one another, and intersecting now and then to fight, threaten, or palaver. It all seemed kind of frenetic and implausible to this landlubber.

Still, there was a lot of action. The writing wasn’t bad.

Religion

Cheek, turned

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Photo credit: Dan Burton. Unsplash license.

Here’s another thought of mine, free of charge. I wonder if I’ve written about this before. It seems to me I’ve pondered it repeatedly over the years, but never actually sat down and verbalized it.

And as many have said before me, I don’t really know what I think until I’ve written it down.

It seems to me a lot of people misunderstand Christ’s command about turning the other cheek.

First of all, let’s quote the passage here, for the sake of our younger readers:

“But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:39, King James Version)

Seems pretty simple, but of course it’s not, in practice. It’s kind of like a command not to ever fart – easy to say, not so easy to live by. How are we supposed to act, in light of this and all the Lord’s other commandments about non-violence? Is self-defense always forbidden? What about defending our families? Our country? Are the wicked to be left completely unrestrained in the world?

But that’s not exactly what I have in mind tonight. What I’m thinking about tonight is what I see as a common misinterpretation of this passage. As far as I can see, this is a simple command, without any promise concerning consequences.

Too many people think there’s a corollary there, one that’s not actually in the text. They think what Jesus is actually saying is, “If you turn the other cheek, then your enemy will be so impressed with your kindness that he’ll change his ways and stop being violent.”

This misapprehension was born, I suspect, in Sunday School stories. Sunday Schools used to provide little papers (maybe they still do; I haven’t been involved in one in a while) where they printed nice little stories with moral lessons. And often those stories were about Christian kids who showed kindness to other kids who’d bullied or hurt them, and in the end the villains saw the light, because of that kindness.

Now I won’t deny that such things can happen. People who treat others badly have been known, now and then, to change their ways, after experiencing forgiveness and kindness from their victims. And that’s wonderful.

But this is in no way promised or guaranteed.

I think that, in the political realm, some people think a Christian (or moral) policing or foreign policy would be based on doing kind things for people who attack and kill us. Naïve people believe that if we’re forgiving and passive enough, our enemies will be shamed into reforming.

Jesus did not promise that. When He told Christians to return good for evil, He knew perfectly well that a lot of them would end up getting martyred for it.

My own belief is that the government (which “bears the sword” according to Romans 13:4) is tasked with protecting its people, not evangelizing through acts of kindness and self-sacrifice. Governments can’t be saved, and make pretty poor evangelists.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Drowning at Dyes Inlet,’ by D. D. Black

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At Dyes Inlet, an estuary in Washington state’s Puget Sound, a woman walking her dog discovers the body of a drowned, middle-aged woman. The corpse has a crude heart carved into its back. Because the local police department is stretched thin, they call in Thomas Austin, a semi-famous former NYPD detective who has moved there in the wake of his wife’s murder. Austin agrees to help out. He is paired with a new partner, a prickly but attractive female detective recently imported from Los Angeles. So begins The Drowning at Dyes Inlet, by D. D. Black.

It’s soon apparent that this murder is identical to an old unsolved case from the 1970s. A suspect quickly appears – but unfortunately this man is the brother of the sheriff, who is running for governor and desperate to avoid a bad press. It will all build up to a final, tense hostage situation at a wedding.

Thomas Austin has one intriguing characteristic as a fictional character – he has synesthesia – the condition where people experience tastes and smells in response to visual stimuli. This was interesting, though I didn’t see that it contributed to the plot in any noticeable way. Austin himself was not a very interesting character – and in fact, none of the characters here were very interesting (to this reader). They had their quirks and eccentricities, but I didn’t recognize them as people. They didn’t talk like real people – they opened up with personal information where real people wouldn’t. The dialogue simply didn’t remind me of anything I’d ever heard. And the villain’s motivations didn’t strike me as plausible.

I got the impression that perhaps the author is on the autistic scale, and doesn’t understand personalities. Alternatively (and more positively) he might just be such a nice person that he doesn’t understand how bad people think. One way or the other, I didn’t find The Drowning at Dyes Inlet very well-written. This is the sixth book in an eight-book series, so somebody must be reading them, but I can’t recommend them.

Religion, Uncategorized

The city and the sea

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Photo credit: Milad Fakurian. Unsplash license.

The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement. (Rev. 21:16-17, ESV)

Amateur theology tonight. (“I’ve had a thought,” he said, as readers sighed in disappointment and scrolled on.)

Way back in 2010, I blogged about how the Book of Revelation (21:1) says that in the Kingdom of God, the sea will be no more. That always troubled me, because I like having the sea around. I come from a long line of sailors and fishermen, and I find the ocean beautiful and romantic.

But I’d learned that for the ancient Hebrews, the sea symbolized chaos, the depths of despair, the place where there was no safety or certainty. The opposite of God’s order. The Old Testament uses the sea as a metaphor for death and Hell (as in the Book of Jonah). So there’s a strong case to be made that when St. John says in Revelation that the sea will be no more, he’s talking about chaos and disorder being wiped out.

And it occurred to me today that the image used in the passage from Revelation at the top of this post, about the “city foursquare,” is in fact a contrasting image. They complement each other. The chaos (sea) has been taken away, and instead we have this huge, perfectly square city. Now, even though I was born to be a city boy, and I moved to the city as soon as I decently could in my life, the idea of a great big square city never appealed to me much. Sounds kind of Bauhaus, kind of Brutalist. Not much scope for green spaces. Most of us would have interior apartments, and one assumes the view and the ventilation wouldn’t be great.

But it occurred to me that, if the deletion of the ocean is metaphorical, that cube of a city is just as likely to be metaphorical. It means everything’s going to be squared away, put right.

This brings us into the realm of mystery. I think it’s beyond question that we are promised that at the very end of God’s story, all things will be made right. Sin and evil will be swept away. Wrongs will fixed. Injustices will be balanced. Tears will be wiped away. Nobody will have any reason to complain about the raw deal they got.

How that will work out, I have no idea. I absolutely reject Universalism. It’s a snare. But I do believe there will be Big Surprises.

A twist ending. That’s what you want in a good story. And as I’ve written here before, I think it’s all a good – no, a great — story.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Knock at the Door,’ by Peter Rowlands

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I’ve had a conflicted relationship with Peter Rowlands’ novels. I like his prose, and I very much like his characters. But I find his plotting a touch weak. In writing A Knock at the Door, he set himself a daunting plotting task. It was – mostly – successful.

Rory Cavenham is a web designer, temporarily out of work. He’s staying at a friend’s large house in England’s Cotswolds when on a rainy night a woman knocks on the door. She’s young and attractive, and soaked to the skin. He’s reluctant to let her in, but she seems to have no one else to help her, so he does. To his astonishment, she claims to believe the year to be 1972. Her name, she tells him, is Rebecca. She is adamant that she doesn’t want to go to a hospital or talk to the police.

Rory turns to the internet (something Rebecca doesn’t understand), and soon learns that there was indeed a girl named Rebecca who disappeared in 1972 – a convicted murderer who escaped from a psychiatric facility. But how could she turn up fifty years later, little older than when she vanished? He also discovers another missing woman who could be her, who supposedly died in a fire a couple years back. But, oddly enough, that woman was a documentary researcher who’d been researching the original Rebecca’s story…

And when uniformed thugs show up to try to kidnap Rebecca, the whole thing starts spinning out of control,

I was often reminded of my own novel, Death’s Doors, as I read A Knock at the Door. The author navigated the same kind of plot situations, where a time-traveling newcomer has to be guided – and to some extent protected – through and from culture shock. The mystery of Rebecca’s identity was a compelling one, and kept me reading with fascination.

Rory, our hero, is a good character, but artistically weak in that he commits the sin of acting naively, in exactly the same way, on more than one occasion.

The final resolution – really a series of resolutions – didn’t, in my opinion, quite live up to expectations. It was emotionally satisfying, but less so in dramatic terms. In short, it fizzled a bit – not entirely, but the bang wasn’t quite what I hoped for. Also, I did see it coming, at least to some extent.

Rebecca’s culture shock was handled reasonably well, but in her surprise at how the world has changed, she fails to mention something that would surely have been remarked on by a true time traveler – the major demographic changes in England since 1972. I can understand why an author would feel it necessary to skip that part, but it weakened plausibility a little.

Still, all in all, A Knock at the Door was an enjoyable story.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Fabled Falcon,’ by Neil Howarth

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As I work my way through the backlog of free books I’ve been acquiring through online deals, I found that I’d arrived at two books in a row about art experts. The last one was Aaron Elkins’ A Glancing Light (review a few inches down), which I liked quite a lot. I liked Neil Howarth’s The Fabled Falcon too, at the beginning, but my enjoyment faded as the story proceeded.

Darius Fletcher (known as “Fletch,” not to be confused with Gregory McDonald’s American “Fletch” character) is a former soldier and a former convict. Now he’s a professor of art at the (fictional) Canterbury University in England. His college is funded by the slightly shady Bancroft Foundation. Fletch is a little shady himself, providing occasional help to an art forger friend, but he genuinely loves art in itself.

One day while he’s lecturing, he looks out at his audience and sees a man there who is not a student. That man turns out to be dead. Fletch recognizes him, though – he’s Francis, a young man with whom he recently worked on an archaeological dig on Malta. Francis had confided to him that he’d discovered something fantastic – a signed painting by the master Caravaggio, who only signed one other known work.

Though Fletch is briefly detained by the police, the Bancroft Foundation quickly secures his release, and sends him off to Malta to find out what’s happened to Francis’ discovery. What he doesn’t yet know – but will soon discover – is that this treasure is being sought by competing sinister, ruthless, and deep-pocketed interests. Teaming up with a beautiful Russian Interpol agent, Fletch does his best to stay one step ahead of them, following cryptic clues to uncover ancient secrets.

If all this suggests to you parallels with Dan Brown and Indiana Jones, you’re not wrong. For this reader, the book steadily lost credibility as mystical and supernatural elements began to intrude – implicitly, at least. I probably would be okay with it if those supernatural elements were Christian, but here the flavor is explicitly Gnostic.

On top of that, there was a definite Hollywood approach, not only in the Fighting Girl Boss character of the Interpol agent, but also in the hero’s tendency to quickly heal from injuries and come back battle-ready.

So all in all, I was disappointed with The Fabled Falcon. It was heretical and implausible (but I repeat myself).

Authors, Fiction, Reviews

My invaluable opinion on a Nobel-prize winning book

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I’ve written a review of Norwegian author Jon Fosse’s Nobel-prize winning novel, Septology. It was posted today by Ad Fontes here.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Glancing Light,’ by Aaron Elkins

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In the last few decades the field of art thievery had developed well beyond the crude old days when paintings had usually been stolen and then held for ransom. Now, with the prodigious rewards offered by insurance companies, nasty ransom demands had become unnecessary. You could be more decorous. You merely stole the piece of art, waited awhile, and then turned it in for the insurance reward. All you had to do was come up with some reproachless way of “finding” the object in question and getting the word to the insurance company.

I have read at least one novel by Aaron Elkins before, and I reviewed it favorably. Nevertheless, his name is one of those that remains vaguely familiar in my mind, but I can’t quite place it. Maybe A Glancing Light will help me remember in the future.

The hero of A Glancing Light (this is the second book in a series) is Chris Norgren (extra points for the Scandinavian name!) a curator for a Seattle art museum. Chris is preparing for a trip to Bologna, Italy to arrange for an upcoming exhibition. He gets a request to evaluate a couple paintings that showed up unexpectedly in a shipment for a low-rent art importer. One of the paintings he dismisses as a fake. The other turns out to be one of a group of paintings stolen in a recent major art heist.

Arriving in Italy, Chris is treated to a welcome dinner by a group of friends. Afterward, he sees one of them being attacked by thugs. Chris rushes to help him. He escapes serious injury himself, but his friend is permanently crippled. Chris is certain this has something to do with the aforementioned art heist, but when he goes to see Bologna’s chief artistic crime cop, he’s not impressed with the man – and the feeling is mutual. The information he has to share is dismissed, and he is ordered to stay out of the whole business.

As you can guess, he will not follow that advice. Before he’s done, he’ll have cause to regret the.

The tone of A Glancing Light is (appropriately) fairly light. Chris is not one of those omnipotent amateur detectives who’s always one step ahead of the police, which makes him all the more believable. And the book is educational too.

I very much enjoyed A Glancing Light.