Category Archives: Reviews

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Wife,’ by Sigrid Undset

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Human beings could not have done this work on their own. God’s spirit had been at work in holy Øistein and the men who built the church after him. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Now she understood those words. A reflection of the splendor of God’s kingdom bore witness through the stones that His will was all that was beautiful.

I will not try to tell you that Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy is easy reading. The books are extremely long, and a lot of time is spent on medieval Norwegian (and Catholic) arcana that even I don’t always understand. And the books are deep as much as long. The author takes us into her characters’ hearts, with an unsparing eye for their loves and their sins.

Volume 2 of the trilogy, The Wife, could be summarized by calling it the tragedy of a woman who’s gotten what she wants. Kristin, beautiful daughter of a wealthy and honorable man, grew up loved and spoiled. She rewarded her parents’ love by manipulating them into letting her marry Erlend, the man she loves. Now she’s his wife, mistress of the great estate of Husaby, and her chickens gradually come home to roost. Her husband may be handsome and romantic, but he’s also thoughtless and rash, the kind of man who can be counted on to join the losing side just when the tide is turning against it.

Kristin is a good wife to him, efficiently taking over management of the estate – which has been shamefully neglected till now – and bearing him seven handsome sons. But her guilt never leaves her, and she takes constant offense at her husband’s thoughtlessness. This drives them apart, until Erlend’s poor judgment gets him arrested and tortured – very nearly costing him his life.

Sigrid Undset demands some effort from the reader, but she provides an unforgettable reading experience – a journey through time and the human soul.

As a translator myself, I noted that Tiina Nunnally, the translator here, has generally done an excellent job. I wonder about her use of the word “village” to translate what I assume to be the Norwegian word “bygd.” I don’t think I would have made that choice, though I sympathize with her problem. “Bygd” has no exact equivalent in English. It refers to a rural community of several farms, not to a cluster of houses with streets. But I’ll admit my alternatives would have been a little clumsy.

In terms of typographical errors, I note that on several occasions, quotation marks are missing from the beginnings of paragraphs, so that the reader is left uncertain whether the words are dialogue or not.

Authors, Reviews

Theatrical review: ‘Further Up and Further In’

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I had a great experience Saturday afternoon (before all the shock of the events in Pennsylvania). Max McLean was in town with the Fellowship for the Performing Arts production of “Further Up and Further In.” A friend of a friend had bought a block of tickets, they had a seat free, and my friend arranged for me to get in.

“Further Up and Further In” is a splendid example of a one-man show. The performance time (about an hour and 20 minutes) rushed by.

I’d seen McLean’s work before, having bought the DVD of “The Most Reluctant Convert.” I thought it an impressive low-budget production, though McLean seemed a little rubber-faced in the role of Lewis. I suspected that the stage was his true medium, and was gratified to be proved right.

I read an article years ago that said that if you only know Sir Laurence Olivier from the movies, you have no idea what a genius he was. He was directed to subdue his reactions and his gestures for the more intimate environment of film. But some spark (the author said) was lost.

McLean doesn’t seem to have subdued his performance greatly for the movie, but on stage this approach is highly effective. The dramatic scenario here is that we’re having a conversation with Lewis in his study in the year 1950, but of course it’s not really like that. Lewis would never have gesticulated as McLean does – these exertions are for the audience in the upper decks. (Also, Jack Lewis would have been smoking constantly, which does not happen in this play.) What we actually have here is a long sermon – but it’s a brilliant sermon, cut-and-pasted from Lewis’ articles, books, and letters. It’s all vivid and exciting, and the stage furniture – desk, wing-backed chair and drinks cabinet – sits before a large rear projection screen that displays images illustrating the narrative.

The text deals with problems of faith such as how we can believe in God at all, and how to deal with the problem of pain. It ends with Lewis speculating on ultimate things, on the end of the world (he quotes heavily from the sermon, “The Weight of Glory”) and the wonders of Heaven.

If “Further Up and Further In” comes to your town, I highly recommend going to see it. I had an exhilarating time.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Toxic Prey,’ by John Sandford

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I wouldn’t go so far as to say John Sandford’s series of Prey novels is losing its momentum. Sandford is still a professional who serves up professional entertainment. But I can’t help feeling the character of Lucas Davenport has become an anachronism, and his act just doesn’t work like it used to.

The opening of Toxic Prey (Book 34 in the series) is pretty neatly done. The author introduces a character in a highly sympathetic, highly admirable light. Then we learn that he’s a psychopath planning mass murder. Dr. Lionel Scott has grown convinced that we face global disaster if we don’t radically reduce the earth’s population. And he has engineered a hybrid virus capable of doing just that. He and his little group of fanatics have a plan to spread that virus, beginning in Taos, New Mexico and from there, pretty much everywhere.

But the Department of Homeland Security has gotten a tip about it, and they send their top agent, Letty Davenport – Lucas Davenport’s adopted daughter. She has recently gotten involved with an English MI-5 agent, who also comes along for the adventure. And the US Marshals send in her dad, along with his highly skilled, ethnically and sexually diverse, team.

What strikes me constantly in these later Lucas Davenport books (and in the real world he’d be long retired by now) is how awkwardly they fit our times. Aside from exciting plots, author Sandford’s great strength has always been the relationships between the cops, expressed especially in hilarious cop banter – usually obscene. But the books have kept up with the times – now about half the cops are female. And you know what – I just don’t believe the banter anymore. Guys who talk that way around women these days find themselves called on the carpet by Human Resources.

But I ought to note that he takes time out to praise John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels here. I’m always grateful for that.
And it should be noted that the bad guys in this book are on the left. You don’t see that often.

Aside from my personal quibbles, Toxic Prey is a perfectly satisfying thriller. Cautions for adult situations and language.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Hound of the Baskervilles,’ by Arthur Conan Doyle

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A long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept over the moor. It filled the whole air, and yet it was impossible to say whence it came. From a dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar, and then sank back into a melancholy throbbing murmur once again. Stapleton looked at me with a curious expression on his face.

“Queer place, the moor!” said he.

“But what is it?”

“The peasants say it is the Hound of the Baskervilles calling for its prey. I’ve heard it once or twice before, but never quite so loud.”

I looked round, with a chill fear in my heart, at the huge swelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes. Nothing stirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked loudly from a tor behind us.

The origins of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book, The Hound of the Baskervilles, are fairly well known. When Doyle returned from medical service in the Boer War in 1901, he had not written a Sherlock Holmes story since 1893, when he killed the detective off for good and all (or so he thought) in The Final Problem. Doyle was tired of writing detective stories. He found them formulaic and uninspiring. But the public was still hungry for more, and, after a tour of Dartmoor with a journalist friend, he hit on a fresh kind of Holmes adventure. Technically he didn’t resurrect his character at that time – he set the story back in 1889, before his “death.” He seems to have been inspired by the legend of Squire Richard Cabell of Brook Hall in Devon, who was remembered as “a monstrously evil man.”

As the story begins, Holmes and Watson are visited by Dr. James Mortimer, who tells them the story of his late friend Sir Charles Baskerville of Baskerville Hall in Devonshire, who died (apparently) of fright on his country estate one night. Mortimer says that he himself observed the footprint of “a gigantic hound” near the body – and Sir Charles had been living in fear of a legendary hellhound said to haunt his family on account of the wicked deeds of one of their ancestors.

Now, Mortimer says, the new heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, is coming from Canada. Although, as a man of science, he has a hard time believing in demons, he is uneasy about Sir Henry’s safety, and wishes Holmes to help protect him. Shortly after Sir Henry’s arrival, he receives a sinister warning letter made of words cut out of a newspaper and pasted on paper, and Holmes also observes him being followed by a bearded man in a cab.

Nevertheless, Holmes claims prior commitments that prevent his traveling to Devon for the moment. Instead he sends Dr. Watson, with instructions to keep him informed of developments by letter.

What follows is a rather delicious gothic mystery, complete with a bleak setting on the moors, the baying of an unseen hound, the presence of a fugitive murderer, and a mysterious figure observed watching from a hilltop in the nighttime. It all leads to a headlong, shocking climax.

The Hound of the Baskervilles was the first Holmes story I ever read (my Aunt Midge gave me a copy when I was in junior high), and it made me an immediate – and lifelong – Holmes fan. I find it hard to believe that Doyle – in spite of his expressed weariness with his character – did not have fun writing it. If he was looking for a fresh approach to telling detective tales, he found it.

I might also mention (and this impressed me) that way back in 1902, Doyle (perhaps because he was a physician) had the sense (unlike a thousand mystery writers who came after him) to realize that the right way to break down a locked door is to kick it in with the sole of your foot, not slam your shoulder into it.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Inkblot Killer,’ by Ray Flynt

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Brad Frame and Nick Argostino are the heroes of an ongoing mystery series by Ray Flynt. Inkblot Killer is the 11th of these.

The background is that Brad Frame is a Philadelphia billionaire. Some years back, his mother and sister were abducted and killed, and he inserted himself into the investigation. Once it was solved, he set himself up as a private investigator. He developed a relationship with police detective Nick Argostino, and they came to trust one another. As Inkblot Killer begins, Nick is newly retired from the force, and has joined Brad’s agency. But he finds himself uncomfortable with the new work atmosphere.

A new client comes in. She is a rich woman, the entitled daughter of a reclusive tycoon, and she wants them to prove her husband is cheating on her. But when she interferes with the investigation, Brad severs their association. Then she herself disappears, and her equally repellant father retains the agency to locate her.

Meanwhile, Nick becomes increasingly concerned as several of his old police colleagues are strangled to death by a mysterious killer who leaves behind index cards bearing blots of blood, like the patterns in Rorschach tests. Nick grows increasingly convinced that he is on the killer’s to-do list.

Inkblot Killer was a competent enough mystery in terms of plotting. But the writing was pedestrian and the dialogue clunky. It had the flavor of something knocked off quickly for the market. There’s no harm in it, but I won’t be back for another.

Fiction, Reviews

Saga reading report: ‘Bard’s Saga’

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There was a king named Dumb. He ruled over the gulfs that stretch north across Helluland and are now called Dumbshaf after King Dumb. He was descended from giants on his father’s side, a good-looking people and larger than other men; but his mother was descended from the tribe of trolls….

When I made my one visit to Iceland involving more than a stopover in the airport, I took a day trip out to the Snæfellsnes peninsula, to see locations I’d be using in West Oversea, which I was working on at the time. At one point we visited the construction/statue shown on the cover of the book shown above (which is not the one I’m reviewing). Our guide told us this was a guy named Bard, who did things like wading across fjords. I’d never heard of this Bard, and it meant nothing to me at the time.

Years later, Bard came up again in some material I translated for Saga Bok Publishing (not likely, alas, ever to see publication now). Bard, it turned out, was the subject of one of Iceland’s legendary sagas – a late saga full of folkloric elements.

The saga opens with the regrettably named King Dumb mentioned in the quotation above. Dumb and his wife have a son named Bard, the hero of this saga. Bard is, for a time, foster son to the giant Dofri, for whom Dovre Mountain in Norway is named (Dofri features in certain legends concerning the youth of King Harald Fairhair, legendary uniter of Norway, which Snorri Sturlusson quite understandably omitted from Heimskringla), but eventually, unable to get along with that same King Harald, he emigrates to Iceland and settles on the Snæfellsnes. Later, unable to live at peace with lesser men, he retires to dwell in a cave in the mountain, becoming a legendary figure (“the god of Snæfell”) who comes at the nick of time to rescue friends when they are in need. In time he has a son named Gest who is effectively identical to himself and performs the same kinds of feats.

In the end, Gest goes to Norway to meet King Olaf Trygvesson. The king exhorts him to adopt the true faith, but he resists. Later, in a scene reminiscent of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an armored troll (or giant) shows up at Olaf’s court and challenges him to send a hero to claim his (the troll’s) treasure. Gest accepts the challenge, traveling in company with a priest, who eventually baptizes him. But Gest (perhaps because of his other-worldly family roots) cannot survive long as a Christian.

It’s a peculiarity of the Icelandic sagas that the genre did not generally improve with time. Later sagas (and Bard’s Saga is one of the latest ones we have) lack the verisimilitude and psychological insight of the classic sagas. Bard’s Saga is interesting for its legendary elements, and also for the geographical assumptions that seem to be in play (the author appears to think North Norway and Greenland are close to each other).

We tend to think of Norse mythology as a sort of closed canon, as in Christian theology. Stories like Bard’s Saga offer abundant clues to whole branches of pre-Christian belief that are remembered, if at all, only in fragmentary or distorted form.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Fulcrum,’ by J. C. Ryan

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Rex Dalton is the hero of a series of action thrillers by J. C. Ryan, The Fulcrum being its first volume. Here is another example of that trope I’ve been noticing lately – thrillers about super-secret, completely deniable government assassins who take lethal care of those special cases normal diplomacy, espionage, and warfare can’t handle. It seems to me this trend must express some public hunger for more robust, aggressive action to be taken against a rising tide of terrorism and crime in the world.

Our hero, Rex Dalton, lost his family to a terrorist event years ago. After that he cast off all his human ties, enlisted in the Marines (later Delta Force and then something even more hush-hush), and began turning himself into a living weapon, a sort of warrior monk committed to killing terrorists to the exclusion of all else. At one point he meets a woman he finds attractive, but his focus is elsewhere.

The prose in The Fulcrum wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, and the occasional political comment usually suited my prejudices. But the problem with this book was that it wasn’t really a story. There was no narrative arc. All we had was a sequence of accounts of various actions Rex carries out – invariably with perfect efficiency. He never makes a mistake. He never meets an enemy he can’t overcome. His plans of action always survive contact with the enemy. This author knows nothing about building dramatic tension.

Which is not to say the book was dull. It was interesting to watch our hero at work. But it just wasn’t a story.

I can’t say you shouldn’t read The Fulcrum. There’s entertainment value here. But I can only deplore the absence of narrative craftsmanship.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Down For the Count,’ by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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He was one of those guys who look around when you talk about money because they can’t imagine any legal way they might earn it.

I reviewed another of Stuart M. Kaminsky’s Toby Peters novels the other day. Toby, a low-rent Los Angeles PI in the 1930s and ’40s, tends to be hired – under seriocomic circumstances – by various movie stars and celebrities to clear their names.

Down For the Count begins with Toby looking down at a murdered man on the beach – and up at Joe Louis, heavyweight champion of the world. Louis explains that he saw the man being beaten and ran up to help, but the killers got away before he got there. Toby, who is a fight fan and respects Louis, believes him. He advises the champ to run off before the police get there, and then undertakes to find the real murderer for him, so he won’t be implicated in a scandal.

Toby knows who the dead man is, because his widow (who happens to be Toby’s ex-wife) just hired him to locate the man. Investigation reveals that he had gotten involved in investing in boxers and arranging “cards.” Losses in such enterprises had gotten him involved with some of the nastiest characters in the LA underworld. There is no lack of suspects – or of tough guys (including cops) eager to rearrange Toby’s face, at best.

The Toby Peters books are always amusing. I enjoy the characters and the period flavor of Down For the Count. This one has a darker ending than most in the series. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Daughters of Cain,’ by Colin Dexter

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Morse had got it wrong, of course. Morse nearly always got things hopelessly, ridiculously wrong at the start of every case. But he always seemed to have thoughts that no one was capable of thinking. Like now.

I think I’ve read all Colin Dexter’ Inspector Morse novels already. But one of them showed up cheap for Kindle purchase, and I figured I’d re-read it – especially as I’ve been watching episodes of the old John Thaw BBC TV series recently. The book was The Daughters of Cain, and I recognized it as one that – though I enjoyed it – I thought included one ridiculous plot element.

Morse is put in charge of a case concerning an Oxford don who’s been murdered in his home. The chief suspect is the “scout” (the servant) in the college building where he worked. That scout had been found to be dealing drugs to students. He also (we learn) had been brutalizing his wife.

But that man has disappeared. Soon Morse begins to suspect that he too has been killed, by a conspiracy of nice women – his abused wife, her teacher friend, and his stepdaughter (also abused), who is now a prostitute.

As is customary in the Morse novels, we have no moments of Sherlock Holmes super-ratiocination here. Morse, fighting a bad cold and fueled by beer and cigarettes, makes one wrong guess after another, until by a process of elimination (and inspiration) he hits on the truth. Which is pretty much how it works in real life, which may explain the charm of the series.

What is harder to explain is the charm of Morse himself. I have an idea that author Dexter’s original conception of Morse was not much like the actor John Thaw (Shaun Evans of “Endeavour” may have been closer). As I recall, the first Morse novel features women commenting on how “dishy” the detective is.

But as the series continued, Dexter threw in with the TV show entirely, and his Morse and the video Morse became pretty much the same. Yet Morse seemed to possess the same attractiveness to women.

In The Daughters of Cain, one of the central characters is Ellie, the abused stepdaughter of the missing murderer, who is now a prostitute. Although Morse finds her repellant at first, he finds himself increasingly attracted to her. And then – and this is what I really don’t get – she reciprocates the feeling.

Why? What is there about Morse as we know him that would appeal to a young woman who has romantic options? He’s much older, he’s out of shape, he’s short-tempered, he isn’t rich.

This element of the story simply made no sense to me. (Not to mention that most cops have more sense than to fall for prostitutes.) It seemed to me as if the author was forcing his characters into unnatural behaviors, and that’s a major sin in fiction.

Otherwise, The Daughters of Cain was quite a good novel. You might feel differently about the romantic element.

Cautions for language and mature subject matter.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Till We Have Faces,’ by C. S. Lewis

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…the Divine Nature wounds and perhaps destroys us merely by being what it is. We call it the wrath of the gods; as if the great cataract in Phars were angry with every fly it sweeps down in its green thunder.

I wonder what J. R. R. Tolkien thought of Till We Have Faces. I can’t seem to find any information about that online. Tollers and Jack were, of course, somewhat estranged by the time this novel was published; not turned enemies, but their friendship had cooled through the circumstances of life. I have an idea Tolkien thought Lewis had lost interest in their mythopoeic project, their shared endeavor to write new myths foreshadowing the gospel for modern pagans.

But that’s very much what Till We Have Faces is – though the myth isn’t a new one (Tolkien specifically wanted English myths) but a retelling of a classic Greek one, the myth of Cupid and Psyche. The central mythopoeic idea that myths are “good dreams” that anticipate the gospel is here, richly and beautifully realized.

Orual is a princess in a fictional barbarian kingdom, apparently sometime in the early Iron Age. She is the oldest – and ugliest – of three sisters. Redival is pretty and frivolous. Istra, the youngest, is so beautiful and sweet that people treat her like a goddess. “The Fox,” the girls’ Greek slave tutor, calls her Psyche, and Orual dotes on her.

But when famine and pestilence come to the land, the people turn on Psyche, accusing her of blaspheming the gods, causing all this evil. It is determined by the priests that she must be taken to the Mountain and sacrificed to the Beast who dwells there. Orual is injured trying to defend her sister, and so is unconscious when the ceremony is carried out.

Later, Orual travels with the chief of the king’s guard up to the Mountain, to gather her sister’s bones for burial. To her astonishment and joy, she finds Psyche there, alive and well. But the girl tells her a crazy story about being married to the Beast of the Mountain, who is actually a sublime god. Orual, certain that Psyche has gone insane, conceives a plan to bring her to her senses. And great evil will come from this.

I first read Till We Have Faces a lifetime ago, when I was in high school and the book was fairly new. It was the second Lewis book I read, after The Screwtape Letters. Callow as I was, I recognized it for a book full of depths, but I couldn’t see very far into them.

Reading it now, as an old man, I found much more in the story. It moved me deeply. Has any book ever dissected the human heart as this one does, bringing to light all the petty possessiveness, jealousy, and even hatred that we humans often mean by what we call love?

Great book. Read it if you haven’t yet. If you have read it, read it again.