Becky announces a reading challenge for April through November 2008. “Read five to eight books by authors who publish under their initials.”
Category Archives: Reading
‘Reading must not become a dangerous sport’
The Paris Book Fair has opened, and some people are unhappy about it. Israel’s President Shimon Peres delivered opening remarks. “‘Those who want to burn books, boycott wisdom, prevent reflection, block freedom, condemn themselves to blindness, ignorance, to lack of reflection, loss of freedom,’ Peres said in his only reference to the boycott,” according to this AP story which has an error in its opening line. It reports there is “a boycott by some Arab nations upset that it honors Arab writers.” That should be honoring Israeli writers.
Fair organizer Serge Eyrolles said, “Reading must not become a dangerous sport,” even though I think it always has been–that is intellectually and spiritually dangerous. How many people have had their lives changed by reading a book? How many readers have had their eyes opened? And the reverse, how many have been blinded by the lies within books? The library, the bookstore can be dangerous places for ungrounded readers tossed back and forth by the waves of competing ideas.
If I’m too tired to spring forward, can I just crawl?
Not a bad weekend, in spite of the fact that it was the debut of a new, absurdly early date for the start of Daylight Saving Time, which, according to the link in this earlier post of mine, doesn’t necessarily save any energy at all. Back when I was a lad, (in the time of Henry VI, Part 1), you had some consolation for losing an hour of sleep in the knowledge that spring was coming soon, and it was getting warmer). Now we’re making the change in the dead of winter (though today got up to about freezing, and the rest of the week looks good. But spring it ain’t).
I got together will my old buddy Chip on Saturday, and we went out to lunch at a marvelous place called The Fifties Grill. I’d heard about it but had never tried it. As you’d expect, the ambience is Ron Howard/Henry Winkler, and the waitresses wear poodle skirts. But the hamburger I enjoyed was better than anything I remember getting in a grill during the Eisenhower administration. If you live in the Twin Cities, you can find the place in Brooklyn Park, hard by Brookdale Mall. (Of course if you live in the Twin Cities, you probably knew it long before I got the hint.)
Then we went to a bargain theater to see “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.”
My evaluation: Fun, but dumb. But you knew that.
It’s nice to see a movie where they actually manage to talk about America without irony. But I’m too obsessive to just take the thing at face value. I had a couple problems with it.
One is, I just don’t like Nicholas Cage. From the first time I saw clips from “Raising Arizona” (which I’ve never watched), I haven’t liked his flat, dull eyes. I would not buy a used car from this man. He’s probably a great guy for all I know, but when you’re an actor, your eyes are a big deal.
Secondly, I’m too much of a writer to entirely enjoy a movie that plays that fast and loose with logic. I’ve talked about “movie logic” before. Movie logic is when somebody leaps a car over a river in a film. It all happens so fast—vroom, they’re gone—that you don’t have time to stop and think, “Would a vehicle with a heavy front end and a light back end actually stay horizontal through a jump like that, or would the front end dip?” Movie logic is when something explodes in a building, and the hero runs out and beats the fireball to the exit. It doesn’t make sense in the real world, but you just saw it happen right there on the screen, so you buy it.
In the National Treasure movies, they come up with these obscure clues (traveling all over the U.S. and Europe to follow them up), and once they’ve read them, Nicholas Cage says, “This has to mean X.” So they run off to check out X, and of course he’s right.
In real life, a clue that esoteric could probably mean a hundred things. But the process of actual and trial and error would slow down the movie, and the task of producing clues that actually make sense would tax the creativity of the writers. So they fall back on movie logic.
And it works, in terms of entertainment.
But it’s lazy, and I don’t like it.
I also finished reading The Face by Dean Koontz. I’ve done enough Koontz reviews in this space, but I just want to say that, although it doesn’t bear close examination theologically, this is an intensely, though subtly, Christian book. The payoff was very elegantly done, and I wish I’d written it.
The Phantom of the Time Capsule
I like this column by Steven M. Barr, over at First Things. First of all, it explodes one of those beloved bits of modern folklore, the one about Einstein being a bad student as a kid. Exploding error is always a good thing, however much comfort I may have derived from this particular legend as a boy. Then Barr goes on to discuss the deathless question of how much we can trust experts:
My own guiding principle is to trust the experts (generally speaking) on anything purely technical, but to rely more on my own judgment as far as human realities go. I trust the architect on what will keep the building up but not on what is beautiful. I trust the pediatrician, but not the child psychologist.
That’s about how I’d put it, only I’d be talking with less… whatchacallit. Expertise.
Turning to matters related to Phil’s post below on proofreading and fact-checking, I was reading this month’s Smithsonian Magazine today, and was surprised to see how long their list of corrections from last month was. Fact after fact had been wrong. I found a mistake in this month’s issue myself (only I can’t find it again now).
Nevertheless, I was much intrigued by this article by Michael Walsh. He was working on a couple of writing projects about Andrew Lloyd Webber, he tells us, back in 1987. Webber, of course, wrote the music for the big musical version of The Phantom of the Opera. In the course of that project, Walsh read the original novel by Gaston Leroux. This novel contains the line, “It will be remembered that, later, when digging in the substructure of the Opéra, before burying the phonographic records of the artist’s voice, the workmen laid bare a corpse.”
Readers for generations had read that sentence without bothering to ask, “Who buried phonograph records in the opera house, and why?”
Well, Walsh discovered the answer when he searched the theater (for other purposes) and accidentally came across a small door with a plaque that read, “The room in which are contained the gramophone records.”
Turns out that a number of very early recordings of the world’s greatest opera singers of the day had been placed in sealed containers and entombed in that room as a time capsule. They were buried in 1907, and were supposed to be opened in 2007.
The theater management had forgotten all about the time capsule by the time Walsh rediscovered it, but they decided to honor the original intention, and leave them alone for another two decades. However, the room was rediscovered by air conditioning workers a couple years later, and then it was opened. Since one container was visibly damaged, they were all removed, but not opened. Walsh says one of them is going to be opened this month (the delay, apparently, springs from difficulties in handling the old discs without damaging them). The recordings will eventually be digitally copied and sold to the public.
Anyway, it all goes to show what every novelist knows—readers don’t pay attention!
Update: I remember the Smithsonian mistake now. In their article on composer/arranger Quincy Jones, they said he’s a descendent of George Washington. There are no descendents of George Washington.
Unlike Drive-ins and Disco, Reading Will Remain
On autobiographical fiction
I’m consuming Dean Koontz books like salted peanuts right now. Although I still have reservations about his style, especially in the early books, I’d have to be even more in denial than I am to claim I don’t find his books satisfying on a very elemental level.
I don’t know what other people find in Koontz. I can’t imagine that all his millions of fans have the same reasons I do. Because what I respond to most in Koontz is the recurring themes of protecting abused children, and of adult children of abuse overcoming their personal demons.
It would be interesting to know what elements in the author’s own life led him to tell these kinds of stories. If he himself suffered abuse as a child, then I can only assume he’s made a remarkable recovery. Because it’s hard to write that way unless you’ve unpacked your old baggage.
I’ve got an unfinished manuscript on my laptop, and I’ve been stuck on it for at least a year. I made the mistake of having one of the main characters suffer from Avoidant Personality Disorder, as I do. I think that’s one (but not the only one) of the reasons the story’s stuck. Because stories are about overcoming obstacles and, in my heart, I don’t really believe this guy is going to overcome his.
Last time I talked about my reading here, I was working on Koontz’ Intensity. I said that I was finding it hard because the story involved spending a lot of time with a really vile sociopath. And that was true, as far as it went. But I think another part of the problem was that I really—really—identified with the heroine, a woman named Chyna Shepherd who, because of childhood abuse, has walled herself off from the world. But she is forced by circumstances to go far beyond her personal limits, and to suffer much, to save a child’s life.
Loved it. But it was harrowing.
Then I went on to read Cold Fire, which looked like it would be a lot more fun. It’s about a guy who’s a living superhero. From time to time he gets psychic promptings that tell him to be at such and such a place at such and such a time, and to be prepared with this or that equipment. When he shows up, he finds somebody’s life in danger, and he saves them.
But the story gets darker. A woman reporter who falls in love with him discovers that his “gift” has its roots in terrible events in his childhood, events he has blotted out of his memory. With her help he confronts them and faces the truth.
At which point, of course, I stopped identifying.
Anyway, the moral (I guess) is, if you want to write autobiographical fiction about your own neuroses, it’s best to wait until you’re all better.
Ash Wednesday Intensity
Sorry I’m late tonight, and I’m afraid I’ll be short as well. Tonight I read scripture for our Ash Wednesday service (turned out the verses they’d given me to prepare were the wrong ones. No matter, I’m a quick study), and my bathroom sink has suddenly developed a massive clog. I hadn’t even noticed it was running slow before this morning.
Must be my renter’s fault.
I’m currently reading Dean Koontz’ Intensity. I remember, back when I had cable, that one of the networks ran it as an original film. I remember looking at the ads and thinking, “That’s precisely the kind of story I don’t want to see or read. I have no interest in spending quality time with a psychopath.” I’m pretty sure that was one of the reasons I avoided checking Koontz out for so long.
My opinion, as far as this book goes, haven’t changed with the reading thus far. Usually Koontz treats us to a group of interesting good characters whom I enjoy getting to know. There was such a group in this book, but they got removed from the stage early on. Now there’s just the heroine and the psychopath. The heroine’s fine. I like her. But I’m spending much more time with the serial killer than I’d choose if given my druthers.
That’s my personal taste. Apparently a lot of people feel differently.
Of China and Spain
Today was actually colder than yesterday, but it felt warmer because we didn’t have that Ginzu wind that seemed to have something personal against us all on Tuesday.
News is that they’re having an unusually severe winter in China, and that all kinds of people are stranded in railroad stations, since this is a heavy travel period in that country (their New Year is next week). Normally, heartless Occidental that I am, I’m only vaguely concerned about what happens over there, be it never so cataclysmic. But as it happens my Youngest Niece is spending two years teaching in China right now, and she’s taking this holiday time for traveling too. I hope the worst that happens is that she’ll have some interesting traveler’s stories to bring back.
I’m reading Stephen Hunter’s Tapestry of Spies (originally published as The Spanish Gambit) right now. What strikes me most about it is the tremendous difference the lack of a strong hero makes. Tapestry of Spies is a fascinating fictional account of a proxy battle between Russian and English spymasters during the Spanish Civil War. There are sympathetic characters (in fact, most of the characters are sympathetic to some degree, which is a very good thing in a novel), but there’s no character you embrace with all your heart, like Bob Lee Swagger and his father Earl in Hunter’s Swagger series. (There is a “Bob the Nailer” in this book, but he’s a sniper on the Fascist side who never actually appears—at least as far as I’ve read to date.)
Here’s a tip for any writer who wants to write a bestselling series. Give us a big, strong, courageous, admirable hero to adore. I’m not saying he has to be perfect. Bob Lee Swagger, for instance, is a recovering alcoholic, and his social skills are lousy. But I still want to be him, and that keeps me coming back to the books.
Just Before Bed
Frank Wilson points to an Anecdotal Evidence post on reading Shakespeare sonnets or Keats letters before bed. I may have to take up this habit myself.
“No bigger than a calf’s skin”
The internet was down most of the day at work today, so a number of things I wanted to do either didn’t get done or didn’t get finished. Sometimes I wonder about this whole computer thing. Imagine an office in 1927, and somebody comes to the boss and says, “I’ve got great new office machine for you. It’ll allow you to do your bookkeeping in a fraction of the time. It’ll streamline your correspondence and printing in ways you won’t believe. It’ll provide information from around the world before the local newspaper knows it.”
And the boss, being no fool, says, “What’s the catch?” (No doubt he’d take a drag on a cigarette before speaking, because everybody smoked in the office back then.)
“Well, the machines will break down every down and then. Fairly regularly, really. And when that happens, your business will basically grind to a standstill. And even when it’s working, your employees will waste a lot of time playing with it”
Would he be willing to invest in something like that? Maybe he would. But I bet he’d think long and hard first.
Dirty Harry over at Libertas speculates amusingly on how “The Yearling” would be handled if it were filmed today.
Dr. John Eidsmoe, author of Christianity and the Constitution, is at our school teaching a seminar just now, and he dropped in to my office today. We got onto the subject of Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla (the sagas of the kings of Norway), one of our mutual favorite books. I mentioned to him one of my favorite stories from the book, one which is included in the Everyman edition, translated by Samuel Laing, but not in the other two translations I own (this is due to a difference in the source texts used).
It comes from the saga of the sons of Magnus Barefoot: Sigurd the Crusader and Eystein the Good. Eystein, being good, died young, but Sigurd lived to an overrripe old age, and appears to have suffered from dementia. Toward the end he announced that he was going to divorce his faithful and much-beloved queen, and marry a younger woman.
The bishop of Bergen at the time was named Magne. Bishop Magne went to confront the king at his hall, and brought along a younger priest, also named Sigurd, who would eventually become bishop himself, and who reported what happened.
Bishop Magne sent word for the king to come out of the hall and speak with him. The king came out, with a sword in his hand.
The bishop refused the king’s invitation to come in and dine. Instead he condemned the king’s decision and told him he forbade “this wickedness.”
While he thus spoke he stood straight up, as if stretching out his neck to the blow, and as if ready if the king chose to let the sword fall; and the priest Sigurd… has declared that the sky appeared to him no bigger than a calf’s skin, so frightful did the appearance of the king present itself to him. The king returned to the hall, however, without saying a word….
Then the bishop went to his own house, and Father Sigurd noticed that he seemed extremely merry. He asked the bishop if he wasn’t frightened, and if he didn’t think it would be a good idea to get out of town.
Then said the bishop, “It appears to me more likely that he will not act so; and besides, what death could be better, or more desirable, than to leave life for the honour of God? or to die for the holy cause of Christianity and our own office, by preventing that which is not right? I am so cheerful because I have done what I ought to do.”
If you’re wondering how it all turned out, the king got his wedding in the end, by going south to Stavanger and bribing the bishop there with a lot of gifts.
But I love that story about Bishop Magne, and particularly Father Sigurd’s description of the sky appearing “no bigger than a calf’s skin.”
I’ve never read a better description of the psychological effect of fear. That man was a storyteller.