Category Archives: Reading

Reading, Religion, Writing

The weight of heroism

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Wild Bill Hickok

I’m reading a novel right now, by a very good author, which is taking me forever to get through. (I won’t say what novel—maybe I’ll review it at the end of the line.) It’s a pleasant story with an interesting narrator. But it’s so… languid. It starts with a murder, but then the plot takes the hero (and the villain) to an entirely different location, and the villain proceeds to do nothing very sinister for a considerable time. The hero is wearing himself out trying to catch the villain at something, but there seems to be nothing to catch. Thus the book lacks that sense of urgency that drives the reader to keep turning pages, and pick the book up anxiously whenever there’s a free moment.

It’s slow.

My analysis of the problem is this—the author has failed, thus far, to raise the stakes. In order to keep your audience’s attention, you need to keep the villain busy doing bad stuff. And that stuff must be devastating and costly. People who matter to the reader, and to the hero, need to be placed in imminent, horrifying danger (unless it’s the hero himself who’s in peril). The good characters’ awful pain and fear are the very elements that transfix the reader.

I think there are very few authors who don’t have a problem raising the stakes like this (I know I do). Most of us are nice people. We don’t enjoy inflicting pain. Raising the stakes is emotionally hard.

This relates to life too. I’ve written more than I have a moral right to about heroism. I believe in the necessity of heroism. I believe that faith and heroism are closely related (all heroism isn’t faith, but all true faith is heroism).

It’s easy to forget that heroism has a high cost. Continue reading The weight of heroism →

Reading

National Gaming Day at the Library

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LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 13: Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt gives a special performance on stage as games manufacturer Konami unveils a new Sony Playstation 2 game, 'Karaoke Revolution,' at the Los Angeles Public Library Downtown Los Angeles on May 13, 2003 Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

In this photo, Jennifer Love Hewitt is performing at the L.A. Public Library in 2003 for Sony’s announcement ceremony for the Playstation 2 game “Karaoke Revolution.” It fits with Daniel Flynn’s article on libraries drifting toward amusement centers, such as renting video games and hosting noisy National Gaming Day events. Flynn writes:

Allen Kesinger, organizer of Newport Beach Public Library’s National Gaming Day, concedes that video games are entertainment but defends their intellectual merit. “Video games have evolved and instead of being endurance tests designed to eat up quarters, they have become a medium to deliver sophisticated, emotionally charged stories. BioShock is the story of an underwater city torn apart by civil war. Heavy Rain is an intense character drama surrounding a father’s loss of his child. Silent Hill 2 is a deep, psychological thriller about a man searching for his deceased wife. Because of this strong focus on narrative, we can use video games . . . [to] attract hesitant readers.” His library’s “celebration of video games” will host a birthday party for the iconic Mario (of Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. fame); feature a rotation of games, including Katamari Damacy and Lego Star Wars; and participate in the nationwide Super Smash Bros. tournament.

Flynn worries that libraries have rejected a vision of cultivating the life of the mind. What is the mind, after all, but a spacesaver between your ears? I mean, if you have the right opinions, who cares if you can really think about them, right? Dude, where’s my game? (via First Thoughts)

Bookselling, Publishing, Reading

Boogieman as Censor

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Loren Eaton talks about censorship in light of last week’s banned books celebration. Did you attend any book burnings or Protest The Read rallies? I was out of town, so I missed the usual fun.
From the Wall Street Journal article to which Loren links, complaints are as good as actual bans for the American Library Association (ALA): “For the ALA, what makes them censors is that they spoke up at all: ‘True’ patriots, presumably, would have kept quiet. Who, then, is afraid of discourse?” Indeed.

Reading, Reviews

Njal's Saga

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I just finished reading Njal’s Saga again today (actually Magnusson’s and Pálsson’s translation, not the new one pictured above). It would be pointless to review such a classic, but I thought I’d jot down a few reader’s impressions, fancying myself (as I do) a fairly knowledgeable reader.



Njal’s Saga is often named as the greatest of all the Icelandic sagas. It’s not my favorite; I prefer the more action-oriented sagas like Egil’s and Grettir’s. That’s not to say Njal’s Saga lacks action. There’s plenty. The body count piles up like kills in a Stallone movie. But Njal’s is perhaps the most reflective saga, the saga that worries most about its soul.

The central character, of course, is the title character, Njal Thorgeirsson. He’s not the hero; there are actually two heroes, Gunnar and Kari, both mighty warriors of whom Schwarzenegger is not worthy. Njal, by contrast, is a man of peace. He’s famed for his wisdom and shrewdness, not for his martial skills. He can’t even grow a beard, a fact that makes him the target of some contempt. In spite of his efforts, his family gets caught in a cycle of killing and revenge that leads to his death (and his family’s) by burning, in his own house. Continue reading Njal's Saga →

Blogs, Socials, Reading

Hwaet!

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Anglo-Saxon helmet part of the Sutton Hoo treasure excavated near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, 1939. British Museum

Photo copyright: Newscom.

Joi Weaver at the Evangelical Outpost has recently “discovered” Beowulf, through experiencing it in the way it was originally intended–as a performance. She’s pretty excited about it, and the performance she recommends–that of actor Benjamin Bagby–sounds delightful.

What followed was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Benjamin Bagby, founder of the medieval music group Sequentia, sat on a bare stage, and sang the first part of the Beowulf story in Anglo-Saxon, accompanying himself on a reconstructed Anglo-Saxon harp. Over the next hour and a half, the story of Grendel’s attacks unfolded, culminating with the coming of Beowulf and the defeat of the monster. I hadn’t gotten any work done–instead, I was perched on the edge of my seat, hanging on every word of the performance. Reading Beowulf had stirred nothing in me: hearing it set my mind and heart on fire.

A DVD is available.

(By the way, my friend Sam the Viking has built a Viking hall at his farm in Missouri. Recently he hosted a Beowulf night for a college professor and her class, during which they recited Beowulf in that historically authentic setting. Wish I could have been there.)

Dale Nelson sent a link to a blog post by Inklings aficionado Jason Fisher. He believes he’s discovered a previously unrecognized influence on Tolkien’s concept of “the Circles of the World.”

I’ll attempt to show how Tolkien’s figurative “Circles of the World” may have emerged from three such disparate sources: the Ynglinga Saga of Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla; the Latin Vulgate Bible, with particular emphasis on the Book of Wisdom; and perhaps even the Hereford Mappa Mundi, a medieval map of the world on display in the West Midlands of Tolkien’s youth. In the end, at this late stage in Tolkien source-hunting, it can be difficult to uncover substantially new (and sufficiently verifiable) source-traces; however, in this case, I believe I have something new to offer to Tolkien Studies.

Check out the blog as a whole. Looks good.

Reading

Njal come back now, ya hear?

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I’ve seen the artifact pictured above, in an exhibition. It’s one of the main reasons we believe the Vikings wore “nasal” helmets like the one I wear, even though none of that sort from the period has ever been found in Scandinavia.
I’d seen it pictured in books many times before I saw the real thing. Its size surprised me. It’s only about as big as a man’s thumb, an object somebody probably carved for fun out of a piece of antler, for no reason other than to pass the time.
A friend who reads this blog recently complimented me, in a personal note, on my “erudition” in Viking studies. I suppose I know a fair bit, when graded on the curve (I describe myself as a knowledgeable amateur), but I keep getting surprised by things.
Grim of Grim’s Hall has been moderating a reading of Njal’s Saga this summer, over at his blog. I drop in my two cents now and then, but I’m constrained slightly by the fact that a lot of things that confuse ordinary readers actually confuse me just as much. Especially when it comes to Norse law. Continue reading Njal come back now, ya hear? →

Reading

Why Are the Big Books All on One Shelf?

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Alastair Harper writes about literary novels being so difficult.

We read books that were clearly quite brilliant, if only we could understand them. They might, as we never admitted to each other, baffle us now, but hopefully we’d come out the other side stronger, better people for the experience. Maybe one day we’d even impress some girls.

He closes the article asking for recommendations and warnings on difficult book. Which ones are worthwhile; which ones are worthless?

Poetry, Reading

How Do You Find the Good Stuff?

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Laura Miller of Salon.com says if the predictions of a wonderful world of self-publishing materialize, average readers will have a very large pile of poor writing to weed through. She describes reading The Slush Pile, that growing mound of unsolicited manuscripts that some publishers assign to an editorial peon.

Miller writes that we on the outside of publishing should fear what we don’t know: “Civilians who kvetch about the bad writing of Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer or any other hugely popular but critically disdained novelist can talk as much trash as they want about the supposedly low standards of traditional publishing. They haven’t seen the vast majority of what didn’t get published . . .”

In a world where any manuscript can be published and placed with online retailers, readers will suffer. Reading bad writing can hurt. “[I]nstead of picking up every new manuscript with an open mind and a tiny nibbling hope, you learn to expect the worst. Because almost every time, the worst is exactly what you’ll get.”