(By the way, do kids today realize that “underwhelming” wasn’t always a word? I first saw it used in the Pogo comic strip, back in the 1960s, I think. It was funny because “overwhelming” had never (that I know of) been paired with “underwhelming” before. “Overwhelming” was one of those words that had no commonly used obverse form, just as we still never talk about anyone being “gruntled.”)
What I mean to say is, I finished recording my novel, Troll Valley, this morning. To mark the occasion, I decided to film myself “in studio,” for the benefit of future literary historians.
I apologize for the quality of the video. The old HP laptop I use for recording doesn’t have much of a camera.
But you’ll note that the sound is good. That’s the quality of sound you’ll be getting with my fully artisanal audiobook.
I need to give the whole thing a listen-through again, though, just to be sure it’s right. I should be able to do at least two chapters of that a day, so it ought to take a couple weeks.
Then, it will take as long as it takes for me to jump through the hoops of converting files for Audible, and uploading. (Phil has already modified the book cover for me, for which I’m most grateful.)
Do they teach them about Eli Whitney in schools anymore? When I was young, Whitney’s story was told (briefly) because of his tremendous – and ambivalent – importance in American history.
Whitney’s cotton gin revitalized the economy of the American south. It made cotton a cheap and profitable bulk commodity. (Until then it had been exclusively luxury wear.) And – tragically – it revived human slavery as a business model in America, where it had been – everyone agreed – quietly dying out. All those self-righteous sermons about God ordaining slavery mostly got delivered after the plantation economy had been revived and prosperity once again depended on cheap field labor.
But there’s another side to the cotton story, less well known but equally significant. I read about it, I think, in Paul Johnson’s The Birth of the Modern, and it astonished me.
I’ve written much about the rise of Pietism and how it contributed to literacy, social mobility, and a new social status for common people. But few are aware how much cotton fiber also contributed to that change.
As I understand it, John Wesley never actually said, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” But it does encapsulate some ideas he expressed. However (I think Paul Johnson made this point), it would have been impossible to say that before cotton became widely available.
Cotton is a wonderful fiber. It’s light and cool, great for summer wear. And you can boil the stuff. Throw it in a kettle and bubble the germs out of it. A poor man who owns cotton clothing can be as clean as the king of England or the president of the United States.
Wool is wonderful in its way (especially up here in the north), but you have to wash it in cool water. You can never sanitize it. That means that throughout history, when most of the poor wore wool, even next to the skin, those poor people stunk.
Cotton gave them a new dignity. I remember my mother reminiscing repeatedly about her childhood in the Great Depression. “Our clothes may have been old, and they may have been patched,” she said, “but my mother saw to it they were always clean.” That’s the pride of the honest poor, and a revolution in the world.
Since it’s supposed to be Pride Month, I’ll go with Cotton-Wearing Pride, thank you.
I’m reading (again) Charles Williams’ final novel, All Hallows Eve. I’m not quite half way through it. Williams is not the easiest read, but I keep coming back to his books. Just a few thoughts tonight about my ongoing impressions.
A recurring theme in Williams’ novels is the city – properly spelled with a capital “C” when he deals with it. J. R. R. Tolkien was always a little leery of Williams, and I’d imagine attitudes towards cities had something to do with it. Tolkien was a countryman, reveling in woods and meadows, trees and flowers and butterflies. Williams was London-born, and felt best at home there, amid the noise, the crowds, the bustle.
I’ve never (yet) read St. Augustine’s City of God, but I understand it to be a meditation on the societal catastrophe of the fall of Rome. Augustine told Christians that they mustn’t identify the City of God with any city of man, however great its pretensions. Christianity could do without Rome – we look to the City with foundations, eternal in the Heavens.
Nevertheless, Williams saw something of eternity in London, and in any great metropolis. A city has a being of its own; a body, a pulse, and a spirit. Many members work together to support a common life. The man of God can find an image of Heaven in the city, if he looks for it. London is itself an active character in All Hallows’ Eve.
Another thing that always strikes me – bothers me, really – in this book is that the villain is a Jew, and his Jewishness is an important element. There is no hint here of Jewish inferiority – rather the opposite. The villain here, Father Simon, is, we are made to understand, the Antichrist. And as the true Antichrist, he has to correspond to Jesus Christ, but in an inverted way. The Jewish capacities that in part made Jesus Messiah are aped and parodied in Father Simon.
This is my personal opinion – we need to be careful, when reading, to understand that people didn’t view antisemitism the same way back then (Williams died in 1945, as the war was ending, but before most people knew the true extent of Hitler’s Holocaust). The old antisemitism was bad enough, but Hitler improvised a new kind. The persecutors of Jews before that time – Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox – had never considered annihilating the Jews. They wanted to convert them. Hitler cared nothing for the Jews’ souls. He was all about “pure” blood, and regarded the Jews as an infection to be removed.
I don’t think we can ever treat Jews the same way in literature again. And that’s a good thing.
Finished reading Chapter 19 of Troll Valley today for the audiobook iteration. Chapter 19 was a bear. It took three days (one-hour sessions) to record, edit, and master the whole thing. I was a little fuzzy on the concept of chapter length back when I wrote the book, and I let that one get out the barn door and off across the pastures into the corn. I start it with Chris, our hero, in the fictional town of Tuscany, Colorado, getting a visit from his brother Fred. Then Fred takes him to the ghost town where their father has settled down for a hermit’s life, and they have quite a lengthy reunion, getting to know each other better than they ever did back home in Minnesota, and revealing some secrets. Then Fred, who’s now an outlaw, has a confrontation with a lawman, after which he must go on the run again. Then Chris says goodbye to his father, has a couple supernatural experiences that change his personality, and gets in a fight in a brothel, in which he is injured. After recovering from his wounds, he heads home to Epsom.
If I were writing it today, I’d make that at least two chapters. Possibly three. But in spite of that, I have to admit that – contrary to my expectations – I think Troll Valley isn’t a bad book at all. I was pretty young when I wrote it, and I’m sure I’m a better artist now, but it’s still a good book. There’s stuff in there I’d completely forgotten about, and it mostly works. If somebody else had written it, and I were reading it for review, I think I’d recommend it.
At one point, when the Anderson boys are gathered with their father, they sing the song posted above, a Norwegian folk song called Dalebu Jonsson. It’s about a man who kidnaps a princess, then singlehandedly fights off 7,000 warriors her father sends to rescue her. Finally the king is so impressed that he agrees to let him marry her – “You can have little Kjersti; you are worthy of her.” (Or words to that effect.)
I know the song from a recording by a male Norwegian group called “Vandrerne,” which no longer exists. They did it in a very rousing style, sort of like an Irish drinking song in spirit. When I got to the part of the text where I include the first verse, in Norwegian, my full intention was to just read the words straight. But as I was reading, I found myself sliding into music, so I ended up singing it. I translated that verse, “Oh, Dalebu’s love was a beautiful maid; he won her with steel and sharp iron blade.” (Which I think is a jolly translation; not literal, but it nails the spirit of the thing.)
The arrangement embedded above is nothing at all like the song as I know it, but I couldn’t find a better one and I thought somebody might be interested.
A scene from Ravnsborg in Missouri, which sadly no longer exists. The man addressing the feast is not a skald, but Sam Shoults, the owner of the place. But you get the idea.
I have apparently survived my first Viking weekend of the “summer season.” It’s not quite summer yet, of course, as was made abundantly clear by events. The skies were overcast, the breeze (though fortunately light) was a-chill. I don’t wear my fine woolen tunic a lot, as Viking reenactment in the country is mostly a warm-weather activity, but I was glad of it this weekend. The crowds at the Fantasy of the Lakes Renaissance Festival in Lindstrom, MN were not large, but that’s hardly the fault of the organizers, who did their best. Oddly enough, my book sales were better on Saturday (the colder day) than on Sunday.
Instead of reading from my Kindle in my abundant free moments, I chose to bring along my current volume of The Complete Sagas of Icelanders. I had a long saga to read, and one I’d read before – at least in the variant recorded in Flatey Book. The version printed in this edition is compiled from four source texts, including some variant passages, which are clearly marked.
This one is The Saga of the Sworn Brothers, quite a famous saga. It seems to be based on a skaldic poem by a man who you may recall if you’ve read my novel The Baldur Game – the poet Thormod Kolbrunarskald (Coal-Brow’s Skald). (I’ve blogged about the Flatey Book version before in this space). The poem, of which this saga preserves passages, celebrates the achievements of Thormod’s friend and sworn brother, Thorgeir Havarsson. Sworn brotherhood was a serious matter in Viking society – once the oath was sworn, each brother was honor-bound to avenge the other’s death. Judging by the poem, and the saga built on it, Thormod was likely from the git-go to be called on to do just that – because Thorgeir seems to have been a complete psychopath. Thormod says of him that he never knew fear – not even bothering to call for help while clinging for life to nothing but a clump of angelica at the brink of a cliff.
The saga is episodic, as sagas tend to be, but it follows the two friends as they carom from one adventure to another, casually killing men and getting outlawed here and there on the way. In time they part company. Thorgeir (the psychopath) enters the household of King (Saint) Olaf Haraldsson, but leaves him eventually to meet his fate. Thormod, when he learns of Thorgeir’s death (at the hands of several killers, of course), sets out to get revenge, a quest that will take him as far as Greenland. Later he enters Saint Olaf’s service in his own right. He is a prominent figure in the legends of Olaf’s death at Stiklestad. His death from an arrow wound after the battle takes place here (as well as in Flatey Book, which I’d forgotten) in a barley barn. I made it a cattle byre in The Baldur Game – Snorri’s Heimskringla does not specify what kind of building it was.
Another difference from Heimskringla is Thormod’s famous last words. In Heimskringla, he pulls an arrowhead out of his chest, looks at it, and says, “The king has fed us well – I am fat at the heart-roots.” Then he dies. He does not say that in this version, but dies in the midst of the last line of a poem he composes on the spot, which is finished by Olaf’s brother Harald (later King Harald Hardrada). This reinforces my guess, which I employ in The Baldur Game, that Harald must have been present at Thormod’s death, and would have been the source of the story.
(The veracity of the “heart-roots” line is also questionable due to the fact that the same line occurs in other sagas, notably when Leif Eriksson’s brother Thorvald is dying after a fight with Native Americans in Vinland.)
The Saga of the Sworn Brothers is an intriguing one, notable for being based on the recollections of a man who’s fairly honest about himself and his dead friend. The sworn brothers are not high heroes, but reckless, feckless youths who do as much harm as good in the world. Thormod’s death in Saint Olaf’s service is regarded as a grace. (The saga writer is not shy about inserting little moral homilies here and there.)
The Sworn Brothers is an intriguing – and valuable – saga.
Tonight, I brag. In a modest, spiritual way, of course.
The latest issue of my church body’s magazine, The Lutheran Ambassador, contains a review of my novel Hailstone Mountain. The writer of the review compares it to biblical narratives, saying:
He manages to make the characters both likable and realistic, simultaneously saint and sinner, wrestling against evil around them and wrestling within themselves. Their lives are raw, sometimes offensively so, but also fully human. Like the Bible, the books are not rated G, but I would rate them five stars because somehow Walker manages to make God the hero and Savior rather than the human characters.
I’m not sure whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that it never occurred to me before that God is the hero of the Erling books. But having that said is about the highest accolade I can think of for them.
It should be mentioned, in full disclosure, that the author of the review, Pastor Brian Lunn of Upsala, Minnesota, is a friend of mine.
I had hoped to have a book review for you tonight, but I soured suddenly on the thing I was reading and gave it up. I’m not sure why I acquired it in the first place – the Amazon synopsis must have been misleading. It turned out to be a woman’s book, though the author was a man. It concerned a woman who gets involved with a couple who prove to have dark secrets. Seemed to be constructed on the basic Gothic pattern – a big old Victorian house was involved. But the story gave strong indications of wandering into Fifty Shades of Grey territory, and my interest dropped like one of my pills, or pens, or whatever other items I find myself dropping all the time in my dotage.
But I had a good morning. My audio book recording brought me – faster than I expected – to the end of Chapter 2 of Troll Valley. I found time to edit and master it too. The whole exercise was a lot less stressful than it has been up to now, so I felt no end of a professional narrator.
I think the final product will lack the polish that many audiobooks boast, but I believe I’m delivering a good performance. I was actually moved today, reading Otto Iverson’s testimony of faith – if you remember that scene in the old stone church. My voice caught a bit, but I did not stop the recording to do it over. The catch was in character.
I have learned very little wisdom in my long life, but I’ve gotten fairly comfortable with the difficult truths of incrementalism and perseverance – you do a little every day and it mounts up in the end. Don’t look at how little you’ve done today – watch how the work accumulates over time.
I’m re-reading Charles Williams’ Descent Into Hell. It’s my favorite of his novels, and (I was pleased to learn) often considered his best by critics. If you haven’t read it, it centers on two characters – a young woman who repeatedly meets her doppelganger walking up the street, and a middle-aged historian who becomes obsessed with a young woman and is offered a soulless simulacrum of her. One of them is drawn into the community of God’s grace, while the other “descends into Hell” through self-indulgence. I have an idea I can write an article about this book that might illuminate some current issues.
Because I have my finger, you know, on the pulse of societal change.
Silly, I admit, but I think I may actually be in a unique position to comment, due not to my wisdom but to my failures and sins.
Anyway, it’s also in this novel that Williams demonstrates most clearly his doctrine of exchange, the idea that the Christian teaching that we should bear one another’s burdens is more than a metaphor. He believed that we can pray to literally take on our brothers’ and sisters’ fears, difficulties, and pains, suffering them for them – because it’s lighter to bear when it’s someone else’s. And they in turn can bear ours.
Williiams’ friend C. S. Lewis reported that he attempted this exercise with his wife Joy, when the pain of her cancer was most difficult. He felt some pain, he said, and she told him her own was diminished.
That’s all very subjective, of course. Not nearly as dramatic as what happens in the novel. I made the experiment myself at least once. As I recall, the sick friend I prayed for did report he was feeling better soon. But again, it’s subjective. Not the sort of dramatic outcome we would like to see.
Of course we can always spiritualize it. Regard it in terms of the mystery of Christian community, the fellowship of the saints.
But that wasn’t what Williams believed. He took it literally.
Photo credit: Yunus Tug for Unsplash+. Unsplash license.
Today, after much soul-searching and delay, I made up my mind to go to a certain well-known men’s clothier and buy a suit. More than that, I allowed myself to be talked into ordering what’s known as a “bespoke” suit – cut to my size and tailored for my peculiar personal form. The waiting time will be more than a month.
You see, I’ve got a little money coming in, and I’ve frequently felt the incongruity of the fact that, for all my talk about men dressing decently, my own (only) suit is rather shabby. It’s a point of traditional wisdom that a “decent” suit is not an extravagance. A man ought to be prepared to present himself respectably when it’s called for.
My suit will be a rich, elegant black, so that I can wear it with my customary black Victorian vests.
Black is the traditional color associated with Pietism and Puritanism (though the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, generally depicted in illustrations in severe black suits, actually liked bright colors. And their hats were not tall and stiff, but soft).
I’ve been reading about my own Pietist roots, in Thomas E. Jacobson’s recent book, Pain In the Belly. It’s about the Norwegian pietist Haugean movement, especially its history in the United States. I’ll be reviewing it once I finish it, but one thing strikes me already:
Author Jacobson (who happens to be a friend of mine) likes to describe the conservatives, the party who wanted to follow the patterns of the old Norwegian state church, as “objective,” since they emphasized the efficacy of the sacraments, in which God does all the work and we are mere recipients of His grace.
My people, the pietist Haugeans, he describes as “subjective,” since we emphasized the necessity of a personal experience with Christ. We were suspicious of anyone who said their relationship with God was confined to receiving the sacraments. If faith is real, we argued, the individual will be transformed, and there will necessarily be an emotional component.
I’m not accustomed to thinking of us Haugeans as subjectivists. I’ve been a strong opponent of subjectivism in the church since college.
And yet the description is perfectly fair. I’m used to thinking of the subjective as just mushy emotionalism, but it doesn’t have to be. Real life is, in fact, a combination of the objective and the subjective, just as it involves the combination of the physical and the spiritual.
But this led to a further puzzling thought.
We Haugeans are often accused of Pharisaism, but Pharisaism is a defect of objective theology. The Pharisee makes a list of his duties, checks each item off the list, and considers himself square with God.
Haugeans are the opposite. We emphasize the passion of faith, total submission in all areas of life.
And yet, it’s not unfair to compare us to Pharisees. We do tend to get obsessed with lists of rules, as means of demonstrating our inner piety. I comment extensively on this characteristic in my novel, Troll Valley.
Perhaps the bottom line is that nothing human is entirely one thing or another.
The Fellowship & Fairydust blog has posted the second part of its interview with our friend Dale Nelson. This portion concentrates on his work on Inklings scholarship:
So, much that keeps me interested in the Inklings is not just academic curiosity or opportunism but a concern for the moral imagination incarnated in our lives and homes; and these books are delightful to read. At the moment I’m reading The Lord of the Rings for the 14th time.
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