Category Archives: Non-fiction

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.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘The CEO of the Sofa,’ by P. J. O’Rourke

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“Children,” says Mrs. Clinton, “are like the tiny figures at the center of the nesting dolls for which Russian folk artists are famous. The children are cradled in the family, which is primarily responsible for their passage from infancy to adulthood. But around the family are the larger settings of paid informers, secret police, corrupt bureaucracy, and a prison gulag.”

I added the last part for comic relief, something It Takes a Village doesn’t provide. Intentionally.

The late, lamented P. J. O’Rourke had something to do with my transition from liberalism to conservatism, back in the ‘80s. Not a determinative influence, but a step along the way. I would have become a conservative anyway, because liberalism was pulling its rug quietly out from under me, like Douglas Fairbanks in an old swashbuckling scene, though slower. But O’Rourke’s Give War a Chance was a book I picked up as I was coming to terms with the situation. I couldn’t buy his whole stoner-libertarian shtick, but a lot of the stuff he wrote made sense to me. And he always made me laugh, which counts for a lot.

CEO of the Sofa is a collection of his essays written around the turn of the millennium. He explains in his Acknowledgments that the title was suggested by Oliver Wendell Holmes’ classic The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, and he frames the essays with imagined vignettes from his home life, in which he cross-talks with his wife, his assistant, his godson (who apparently lives with them), their babysitter, their daughter (later two daughters) and the Political Nut (who is himself), along with occasional others.

It’s been a while since the early 2000s, and some of the material hasn’t aged well. And, of course, O’Rourke is himself gone now, which is a bummer. But it’s still a fun ride, touching on a miscellany of subjects from the UN to childbirth, from Hunter S. Thompson to the indignities of middle age. I didn’t always agree with the points, but it was always funny. Great lines were everywhere – “Two hundred and fifteen dollars for your story, ‘Chewing-Mouth Dogs Bring Hope to People With Eating Disorders.’”

I wish I’d written that.

Recommended, with major cautions for obscenity, drug humor, and general bad taste.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Tolkien and the Great War,’ by John Garth

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Left to his own devices, it seems quite likely that Tolkien would never have finished a single book in his life. What he needed were publishers’ deadlines and a keen audience.

…C. S. Lewis stepped into the breach….

I’d heard of John Garth’s book, Tolkien and the Great War, before, and when it came up at a bargain price on Kindle I snapped it up. It kept me engrossed all through.

If you’ve read any biographies of Tolkien, like Humphrey Carpenter’s or Tom Shippey’s, you’re already familiar with the author’s war years, and the fact that they affected his creative work. What John Garth does in this book is to look at the story in detail, collating the biographical facts with the progress of Tolkien’s composition of his poetry and The Book of Lost Tales. A certain amount of guessing and supposition is inevitable, but author Garth avoids over-certainty.

As a student at Oxford, Tolkien bonded with a group of like-minded students with literary aspirations who called themselves the TCBS, the Tea Club and Barrovian Society. Together they worked out literary theories (rejecting modernism) and dreamed of future days when they’d storm the critical barricades and change the world.

The First World War ended all that. On the battlefields of France, in the midst of the mud and the blood and the poison gas, two of them died, and Tolkien and the other surviving TCBSian were never as close again. (We often say that the poor are “cannon fodder,” but that wasn’t true among the English in World War I. “Of every eight men mobilized in Britain during the First World War,” Garth writes, “one was killed. The losses from Tolkien’s team were more than double that… among former public schoolboys across Great Britain – about one in five.”)

As Garth indicates, the very nature of Tolkien’s vision and work was altered by his war experience. What had begun as a scholarly hobby – the creation of a “Gnomish” language – developed into a cycle of stories (The Book of Lost Tales) meant to re-imagine the forgotten myths of ancient England. It was while he was recovering from the Trench Fever that sent him home that Tolkien began to re-cast the story as an epic of an ancient, imagined Middle Earth.

For anyone fascinated with Tolkien’s books, Tolkien and the Great War is a fascinating and engaging read. John Garth is an excellent writer with a real flair for words (he speaks, for instance, of an early parodic poem by Tolkien featuring “boys charging around in names that are much too big for them”). I highly recommend this book.

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.

Non-fiction, Religion, Reviews

‘The Truth and Beauty,’ by Andrew Klavan

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He was the living truth. The religious had to kill him because they were religious. The leaders had to kill him because they were the leaders. The people had to kill him because they were the people. The law had to kill him because it was the law.

That was what it was like to be the truth in the world….

When Andrew Klavan released his autobiography, The Great Good Thing, I compared it to C. S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy. But Surprised By Joy was a kind of re-working of a subject Lewis had handled allegorically in his earlier work, Pilgrim’s Regress, whose subtitle is: An Allegorical Apology for Reason and Romanticism. In his new (fairly short) book, The Truth and Beauty, Klavan addresses the same volatile topic.

As he tells the story, he was troubled by his inability to understand Christ’s teaching. He knew the gospel story. He understood the doctrines (as much as any of us understand them). But how do we follow Jesus’ teachings? Are we really expected to give everything we own to the poor? Not to resist an evil man? To pluck out an eye that leads us to sin? What is Jesus talking about?

His son suggested that perhaps he was trying to solve a problem instead of trying to get to know a Man. So he plunged into the gospels – taught himself Koiné Greek to read them in the original language. And what he began to understand – oddly – led him to the Romantic Poets of England.

The book casts a wide loop, but always returns to those Romantics – Wordsworth, Keats, and Coleridge on the bright side, and Byron and Shelley on the dark side. And among them, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in whose novel Frankenstein he finds a key to understanding much of the modern rebellion against nature – Victor Frankenstein, he hypothesizes, was not trying to play God. He was trying to eliminate the Female. Which makes him a harbinger of our times.

There is much to ponder in this book, and I can’t claim I understand it all. I need to read it again. But the answer to the problem of getting to know the mind of Christ, as Klavan sees it, is seeing how in all nature – not only the natural world around us but our own nature – the truth of Christ is revealed. The Trinity is everywhere, giving us glimpses behind the veil, calling out to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. The life that Jesus lives is promised to us. The Romantics at their best glimpsed this, and some of them embraced it in the end.

There were things in this book that troubled me from a doctrinal point of view. I think any thoughtful Christian will have a similar experience. Because Klavan isn’t doing apologetics here. He’s peering into mysteries. He may be wrong at some points, but I’m not prepared to say so on one reading of the book. By and large, I think he’s on the right track.

Highly recommended for thoughtful Christians, especially those who love literature.

Blogs, Socials, Music, Non-fiction

A Tall Anniversary, Beautiful Things, and Conversations

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Thursday was the anniversary of the completion of Paris’s iconic ironwork project, The Eiffel Tower, named for the owner of the company that proposed and assembled it by March 31, 1889. They were aiming to have it up for the 1889 World’s Fair to be part of the centennial gala of the French Revolution. Philadelphia held a similar one in 1876.

The architect proposed using large stone monumental pedestals at the base and glass halls on every level of the tower. It’s final, simplified design was constructed in 18,000 parts in Eiffel’s factory about three miles away. The measured every piece carefully and mathematically configured the lattice work to minimize wind resistance. Two and half million rivets hold together the 1083-foot tower. 

Viewing the construction for a few weeks before completion, journalist Emile Goudeau wrote, “One could have taken them for blacksmiths contentedly beating out a rhythm on an anvil in some village forge, except that these smiths were not striking up and down vertically, but horizontally, and as with each blow came a shower of sparks, these black figures, appearing larger than life against the background of the open sky, looked as if they were reaping lightning bolts in the clouds.”

More on the 1889 World’s Fair from Marc Maison.

Beauty: Where would we be without beauty? It enlivens the heart; we value it, even if the beautiful thing isn’t useful–putting aside the inherent beauty of some useful, well-designed things.

Symphony: Robert Reilly says, “There is a steadiness in Haydn’s music, a sense of normalcy. At the same time, it is filled with wonder at what is—at its goodness.” Haydn was told his sacred compositions were too cheerful; he replied that his heart leaped for joy at the thought of God. As an example, here’s a performance by the Chiara String Quartet of Haydn’s “Seven Last Words of Christ.”

Sounds: Cambridge’s word blog is talking about rustling and howling type words.

Isaac Adams: “The race conversation often feels like talking to each other at the Tower of Babel. We may be trying to build together, but we’re frustrated and speaking past one another.” Adams’s book, Talking About Race, intends to inspire healthy conversations on this subject and bring us together.

Gene Veith: The popular Lutheran blogger is moving to a subscription model at $5/month.

Photo by Karina lago on Unsplash

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Non-fiction

Unable to Define Our Terms, Good Podcasts, and the Nazis We Are

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Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or beast;
In doubt his mind and body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, Epistle II

I may have some entertaining posts for you soon. The links below have a couple bits of entertainment, but the rest are about matters to grave to laugh over.

Hunter Baker: “We cannot extol being a ‘wise Latina’ in one instance and then remain ambiguous on what a woman is in the next instance.”

Old Books: A collector talks about the books of William Strunk, Jr.

After Gettysburg: Meade and Lee at Rappahannock Station

Maria Stepanova: The Russian novelist, poet, and publisher has written about the war and her country. “Dreams about catastrophe are common in what was once called the ‘post-Soviet world’; other names will surely appear soon. And in these recent days and nights, the dreams have become reality, a reality more fearful than we ever thought possible, made of aggression and violence, an evil that speaks in the Russian language. As someone wrote on a social media site: ‘I dreamt we were occupied by Nazis, and that those Nazis were us.'” (via Books, Inq)

Podcasts: I think I told you before how good World’s Effective Compassion podcast series is. The third season on prison ministry has just concluded–ten compelling episodes. Next week World will begin a true crime series on the horrible story of Terri Schiavo.

This episode of the Hillsdale Dialogues with Hugh Hewitt and Larry Arnn is provocative in clarity, especially if you’re inclined to believe the ill-considered conclusions Tucker Carlson has drawn lately (see the comments here). How closely will Zelensky follow the footsteps of Churchill?

Photo: Hanks Coffee Shop sign, Benson, Arizona. 1979. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Non-fiction

Zelensky as the ‘Servant of the People’

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Anthony Sacramone reviews an episode of a recent TV series about a high school history teacher who became president that stars the lawyer-turn-comedian who is the current president of Ukraine.

“In short, no one believes what is in fact the truth: A common man without guile or political experience is now the most powerful person in the country, thanks to a popular assent collated by the internet, the same medium that brings you cats falling off pony walls and Russian disinformation. Can you blame them?”

He says it’s funny, endearing, and probably has more heart than many comedies.

In April 2019, when Zelensky won national election, the BBC summarized his victory.

With nearly all ballots counted in the run-off vote, Mr Zelensky had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind on 24%.

“I will never let you down,” Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters.

…

Experts say his supporters, frustrated with establishment politicians and cronyism, have been energised by his charisma and anti-corruption message.

May the Lord give him many years to fulfill this promise.

Non-fiction

Mariupol, a Ukrainian Black Sea Port, is Battered and Despairing

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Yesterday, three AP reporters published this account of the war horrors suffered in Mariupol, Ukraine. On March 4, the city lost power. The only stations the radios could receive played Russian news People took everything they could from the grocery stores.

On March 6, in the way of desperate people everywhere, they turned on each other. On one street lined with darkened stores, people smashed windows, pried open metal shutters, grabbed what they could.

…

Nearby, a soldier emerged from another looted store, on the verge of tears.

“People, please be united. … This is your home. Why are you smashing windows, why are you stealing from your shops?” he pleaded, his voice breaking.

There are so many bodies and as yet no way out.

Blogs, Socials, Non-fiction

Dulce et Decorum Est pro Patria Mori

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War has a glory to it. We marvel at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to fear Russian invaders. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has shown similar valor. They have inspired thousands of people from other countries to join their fight, including a man known as the deadliest sniper in the world. This is the fight that’s been handed to them, and they are brave or cocky enough to not shirk it.

For many Russians, the opposite is true. Their leaders are cruel bullies who tell them it is sweet and fitting to die for the fatherland, which is the meaning of the Latin words above. Wilfred Owen’s poem on this idea has stuck with me since my college days. War is an ugly thing many are called to do; the elites who will direct other people in other places so that they will not suffer call it sweet and fitting.

Peace: I was unable to find a published announcement of an event I heard about on the radio, that radio stations around the world were playing Beethoven’s Symphony 9 or at least the last movement, “Ode to Joy,” as a bid for peace in Ukraine. On Wednesday, twenty members of the Kyiv’s orchestra played it in the city square.

Russia: Peter Hitchens says he has been fond of Russia, of the heart he believed he saw in Russian people. “What if this could now be put right, if once again the sweet, low houses of Moscow could be populated by gentle, literate, moral people,” he once thought. He sees no chance for that now. (via Books, Inq)

Russian Orthodoxy: Americans argue and accuse others of Christian Nationalism while the Russian Orthodox Church practices it. Imagine “Onward Christian Soldiers” being sung by Russians about Putin’s leadership.

Freedom Convoy: Why socialists betrayed the working class

Book blogs: Here’s a list of 10 book blogs that spend a bit more time in front of the mirror than we do.

Travel blog: My sister writes a travel blog using her photos from mountain tops and rollercoasters.

Photo: John H. Garth Memorial Library, Hannibal, Missouri. 2003. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.