Hunter Baker talks about the ideas in his latest book, Political Thought: A Student’s Guide (Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition)
Category Archives: Authors
Not Quitting Their Day Jobs
Dave Astor describes the gainful employment of many authors, not as professors and journalists, but as clerks and anthropologists. For example, Anthony Trollope worked in the British post office. (via Books, Inq.)
On Ray Bradbury
Stephen Andrew Hiltner, a fact-checker for The Paris Review, talks about working on the journal’s interview of Ray Bradbury. “[W]hat I found in the interview were things that had escaped me for much of my undergraduate and graduate years—years spent earning a supposedly literary education. He promotes friendship, love, self-discovery, the daily intake of poetry. He instructs us to read from every kind of literature we feel drawn to…. He talks about the ‘fiction of ideas’…” And there’s a story about the author’s life-long inspiration which cannot be verified and yet must be true.
Stamina, Willpower
Novelist Haruki Murakami writes, “Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day.” He says it’s important to push yourself to create your vision and to train yourself to push.
Linkage about writers
I reviewed Ric Locke’s Temporary Duty a while back. If you’ve been thinking about buying it, this would probably be a good time. Or you can go to his web site and hit the Donations link at the upper left. Ric has been diagnosed with Stage III, inoperable lung cancer, and his financial situation is tight.
Ric was kind enough to give me encouragement and advice when I was thinking about doing an e-book. He’s in my prayers.
Our friend Hunter Baker recently gave a speech on the Christian view of freedom, and how it differs from the secular humanist view, at an event in Tennessee. You can read the text here, at his blog.
From Rousseau’s perspective, Christianity and particularly what he called “Roman Christianity” presents a serious problem because there will always the difficulty of double power since the church will not simply yield to the state. Where there is conflict, the church will go where it believes God is leading it. In Rousseau’s mind, such a conflict should be impossible. The state must rule without question. He praised Hobbes for trying to put the two powers back together under the rule of Leviathan in which the state would control religion completely. What is needed, Rousseau wrote, is theocracy such that there is no pontiff other than the prince and no priests other than the magistrate. The only real sin in this new state Rousseau envisioned is intolerance. It is not even enough to have theological intolerance and civil tolerance. Theological intolerance cannot be tolerated. Anyone who “dares to say outside the church there is no salvation ought to be expelled from the state . . .”
Imaginary Books
Mark Bertrand, whose novel Nothing to Hide (A Roland March Mystery)
A Documentary on Walker Percy
Walker Percy, preview two from Winston Riley on Vimeo.
This one-hour program on author Walker Percy will be worth any booklover’s time. Image Journal notes:
Now, it would hardly be true to say that Percy’s been forgotten—two major biographies of him have been published and his books continue to sell well. But we are convinced he should be even more widely read. . . . The experts consulted are extremely well chosen, and include the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and psychiatrist Robert Coles, novelist Richard Ford (who has long cited Percy’s Moviegoer as his inspiration for becoming a writer), the late historian and novelist Shelby Foote, Paul Elie (author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own), and biographer Walter Isaacson (whose most recent book was about Steve Jobs).
Multiple matters of moment
Several things to comment on today. All of them important, but I’ll touch lightly on them and pass on, like an obsessive-compulsive in a faucet factory.
First of all, today is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944. Fewer and fewer there are among us who were there and can tell the story. A grateful nation honors the living and the dead.
And, as Phil mentioned, Ray Bradbury died today. I think I read most of his books in high school. Though I wasn’t a huge fan, I remember liking Something Wicked This Way Comes and The October Country.
Andrew Klavan illuminates both culture and the creative process in an article at The City Journal, No Joke. (In case you’re wondering, I found the joke amusing, but not hilarious. I guess that explains why Klavan’s famous and I’m not.)
Here’s a link to video from yesterday, when the Viking ship replica The Dragon Harald Fairhair was set in the water and christened in Haugesund, Norway. The video’s in Norwegian, but it’s mostly visual anyway. A fellow reenactor complained to me about the propeller that’s visible near the stern. According to the project web site, Norwegian law requires them to have an engine (for emergencies, one assumes). But they’re not planning to cheat. This is a sailing and rowing vessel.
And last but least, my test went fine, and the doctor said things looked good. Thanks for your prayers and good thoughts.
Ray Bradbury Died This Morning
Ray Bradbury, 91, died this morning in Los Angeles. He received a long overdue national medal of arts from President Bush, a special Pulitzer citation, and National Book Foundation recognition only a few years ago.
Reading Flannery
Biographer Jonathan Rogers is hosting discussion on stories by Flannery O’Connor all summer. See the reading list here. The first story is up this week, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”