Writing

Back to Haakon

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I am now officially on my own again, work-wise. For the last few weeks I’ve been working on the magazine I edit for the Valdres Samband (an organization of descendants from a particular region of Norway), but I sent that to the printers yesterday. This means I can devote my powers once again to my Work In Progress, my novel about King Haakon the Good of Norway. That’s him on top of the column in the picture above. I’m on the ground, on your right, while my friend Einar is on the left. The photo was taken on my last trip to the Center of the Universe, at Fitjar, where Haakon died.

I’m still mostly doing research, going through books and noting down ideas and intriguing facts. For instance, I discovered in Bishop Fridtjof Birkeli’s book, Tolv År Hadde Kristendommen Vært i Norge (Twelve Years Had Christianity been in Norway, sadly out of print now, but I have a copy), that Haakon had a heathen wife, according to one very old source.

This is great. There’s all sorts of things I can do with the situation of a Christian king married to a heathen. It also addresses the issue of Haakon’s sexuality, which was insulted by Poul Anderson in his novel, Mother of Kings (which I do not choose to link). Anderson made Haakon a homosexual — one assumes because Haakon left no heir, and the sagas don’t mention his marriage. Needless to say, I don’t intend to take Anderson’s lead.

I came up with a great scene, pleasingly offensive, which I plan to incorporate somewhere in my account of Haakon’s childhood. It’ll be something like this:

“Let me tell you something about women, lad. Something you’ll need to understand. You should listen to women when they talk. Listen carefully. Give them your full attention. Then do the exact other way round from what they say. If she says she wants to be handled roughly, to be grabbed up, carried off and ravished, then pick flowers for her. Sing her songs of love. Tickle her knees like a little girl.

“And if she says she wants a kind man in whom she can confide her deepest thoughts and hopes, well, then take hold of her, push her up against a wall, and hump her on the spot.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because none of them knows what she wants. We men are always complaining that we don’t understand women. Let me tell you – they don’t understand themselves any better.”

“So they always say they want what they don’t really want?”

“Always. Most of the time. Seven times out of ten. Or six. Maybe five. As often as not, anyway.”

My working title at the moment is That Was a Good King, a quotation from Beowulf. But I’m not married to it.

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“The roar-a borealis”

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The clip above is from one of my favorite movies, Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero. The setup is that our hero Mack, played by Peter Rieger, is a Texas oil company representative, sent to Scotland to arrange for the purchase of a stretch of coastline where they can build an oil terminal. But he also has a special assignment from his eccentric boss, Mr. Happer (Burt Lancaster). Happer, a passionate amateur astronomer, wants Mack to watch the sky, in the hope he can find an undiscovered comet he can name after himself. However, Mack, along with his Scottish escort Jimmy (Peter Capaldi, later to be Doctor Who), is growing increasingly enchanted by the scenery and the local folk – who are, for their own part, simply delighted to sell their property off for a pile of American money.

The clip is highlighted by the appearance of the aurora borealis. I had hopes of seeing it myself last night. The previous night – Tuesday – there was (as you’re probably aware) a spate of sightings. People from all over the country were posting pictures of it on Facebook. I went out onto my back porch to look for myself, but saw nothing. My back yard isn’t a great spot for aurora hunting – it faces north, but there are tall houses and trees that way. Also quite a lot of light pollution.

It troubled me that I’d missed the lights. I know I’ve seen them once before – sometime around 1972 in northern Minnesota. I might have seen them in Alaska the summer before that, or in Norway the year I took a cruise above the Arctic Circle. But summer isn’t the best time for northern lights, so maybe my not remembering isn’t just because of aging brain cells.

Anyway, I thought about it overnight. And yesterday, the word was that the lights might be even more spectacular. Viewing after 9:00 p.m. was recommended. “I shall get in my car and drive north to see them,” I decided.

And I did that. I drove up to Brooklyn Center, and parked in the Walmart lot. It was still an urban location, granted, but people further south had posted aurora photos already that night.

But for me, nothing. Nada. Niente. (That’s a quote from Local Hero, by the way.) I sat around for about half an hour. No show.

I comfort myself with the fact that I tried. I stayed up late and delayed my bedtime. I drove in the dark (always a challenge when you’re getting on in years) and waited in patience. Just to see something beautiful.

I’m old, but I’m not quite dead. Apparently.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Working Stiff,’ by Bill Krieger

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Yesterday I reviewed a book that attempted to take up the mantle of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. I didn’t like it.

Tonight, I review a book that does a much better job of portraying a hard-boiled investigator. Not anywhere near Chandler’s league, but if Bill Krieger had had the audacity to try it, I think he’d have done a better job than last night’s author.

Which is not to say this book is great. Just better.

The hero of Working Stiff is Frank Leland, a New York City private eye in the 1970s. He’s a large, fat man, constantly overeating for comfort as he deals with the trauma of divorce and separation from his wife and young daughter. He used to be in Overeaters Anonymous, but has fallen off the wagon.

Frank is hired by the president of a mid-level advertising agency – only to be appalled to discover that one of their employees, a beautiful young woman, is lying stabbed to death in her office. What his client wants is for Frank to hide the body… temporarily.

Tempted by the money offered, Frank takes the job but surreptitiously calls a friend, a woman police detective, who manages to come in and take control of the crime scene without revealing that Frank dropped the dime. Then the murder weapon – a pair of scissors – is discovered on another employee’s desk, and he is arrested. That employee’s pregnant wife then asks Frank to prove her husband’s innocence. They don’t have much money to pay, but Frank is sentimental enough to take the case anyway, out of compassion.

Frank discovers that the advertising world is a fouler den of serpents than he ever imagined. Before he’s done he’ll have to make hard choices between lesser and greater evils, ethical decisions that will leave him – and the reader – mired in insoluble conundrums.

The story in Working Stiff is pretty good, though I think the police procedures are a little loosely portrayed. I questioned some of the period details – were computers used in many offices in 1977? Did people talk about reality shows and service dogs in those days? I don’t recall that they did, but my memory can’t always be relied on.

But the real weakness was in the writing. The prose here wasn’t awful, but it was (like its hero) a little flaccid. Sentences could have been shortened by stronger word selection. Whole sentences could have been excised, and the writing would have been more effective. The author has talent, but needs to sharpen his tools.

Still, Working Stiff wasn’t bad, especially if you’re looking for a detective hero out of the ordinary. Cautions for troubling adult themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Goodbye Coast,’ by Joe Ide

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Assuming one wished, for argument’s sake, to reboot Raymond Chandler’s private eye character Philip Marlowe in a modern setting, there is, of course, some precedent – in the movies. James Garner played him in updated form in 1969. Elliot Gould in 1973. And Robert Mitchum in 1978. But each movie did its best to retain the style of the original books and the essential personality of the main character.

Why would anyone wish to reinvent Marlowe as a slightly naïve young detective in the 2020s, with a suspended cop for a father?

The Philip Marlowe of Joe Ide’s The Goodbye Coast is not a former investigator for the district attorney’s office, but a failed cop. His father, Emmet, is a decorated police detective who went into a tailspin after the death of his wife. Now he’s been suspended and is fighting the bottle, but doesn’t hesitate to wave his badge and strap on his gun when his son needs a hand.

Marlowe gets a referral to a job for a fading female Hollywood star, who wants him to find her missing stepdaughter, who disappeared after the murder of her ex-husband, a has-been director. Marlowe suspects his client’s motives aren’t as advertsied, and he’s soon investigating the ex-husband’s murder, which seems to involve Armenian gangsters. He finds the girl, who does not want to go home, so he stashes her with his dad, who finds himself bickering with her but also growing fond of her.

There is also a subplot about Ren, an Englishwoman who wants Marlowe to help her find her son, kidnapped by his noncustodial father. Marlowe begins to fall in love with her.

It’s a reasonable plot, if a little complex (and believe me, it gets a lot more intricate than this short synopsis suggests). So what’s wrong with the book?

First of all, it’s written in the third person, multiple viewpoints. THAT IS NOT HOW A MARLOWE STORY WORKS. One of the main pleasures we seek in these stories is the “face to face” encounter with Chandler’s meditative, intelligent, compassionate/cynical, mildly erudite detective. Joe Ide removes that pleasure, replacing it with graceless, rambling description.

We love the stories for Chandler’s spare, evocative, quotable prose, like, “He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.” Author Ide isn’t capable of that kind of writing. He gives us lines like, “He smelled like a flower show run over by a truck.” What does that even mean?

Chandler was also great at creating vivid characters. Ide’s characters might be described as vivid, I suppose, but only in terms of incoherence. They act like they have multiple personality disorder, taking bizarre and violent action purely (it seems) to advance the plot. I was tempted (though I know nothing of the author) to wonder if he’s autistic and just doesn’t know how normal people think and act.

Ide’s Marlowe is also weepy and apologetic when he makes a mistake – something the real Marlowe was never guilty of.

If The Goodbye Coast had been offered as a stand-alone, with a main character with some other name, I might or might not have finished it and given it a review. It wouldn’t have been a very good review.

But shove this at me with a tag marked “Philip Marlowe” tied to it, and I feel seriously shortchanged.

I do not recommend The Goodbye Coast.

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Portrait of the author as a better man

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The image above is sort of an act of treachery on my part. Since I am (and must be) one who identifies as an enemy of Artificial Intelligence, I’ve made little use of it as a tool in any way. But today I saw where somebody had gotten one of the apps to turn his photo into a Renaissance portrait. I was intrigued. So I went over to Grok and got it to transmogrify my photo into the picture above – “in the style of N. C. Wyeth.”

I don’t know that it looks a lot like Wyeth, but it’s not a bad picture. Nevertheless, I find that I rather resent it. Not merely the fact that it’s a younger version of me – it’s also handsomer, and looks physically stronger. I wouldn’t want to face that guy down; I don’t think I could take him.

I well remember when the original photo was taken. It was at a Viking event in Missouri, where a fellow I knew had built himself a Viking farm, where he hosted a couple events a year. That was my last year there. I introduced a young man and woman, who later married. This pleased me greatly. Until they broke up. I’m tempted to blame the failure of their relationship on myself, because I’m like that.

I never went back to that Viking farm again. The owner said something to which I took offense – not about me, but about someone else. So I implemented my usual revenge strategy of backing away from him, for that third person’s sake.

This strategy would be more effective if anybody ever noticed my absence.

I heard the farm owner died a while back. In retrospect, I wish I’d stayed in touch. Not that we were close friends, but I ought to be more open and aboveboard in my dealings with people.

I’m pretty sure the guy in the picture would be.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Never Far Away,’ by Michael Koryta

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“Every now and then, a bit of work will come your way with sincerity, Mr. Blackwell. The man in the middle won’t have any skin in the game. He’ll speak honestly to you, asking for the unique help that only a few people on the planet can provide. And if you accept, for one occasion at least, you’ll have the pleasure of working with a clean heart if not clean hands.”

One of the things that keeps me coming back to Michael Koryta, aside from his excellent prose, is his surprising characters. Never Far Away kept me guessing all the way through, mostly because one of the central characters was truly impossible to predict (and I can tell you, as a writer, that that’s a hard trick to pull off).

Leah Trenton is a successful, and highly skilled, Maine outdoor guide. But this is her second life. In the first one, she was a corporate pilot, working for a wealthy family reminiscent of the Kennedys, and a loving wife and mother. But one day she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and saw something she wasn’t supposed to see. The only choice she had was to fake her own death and disappear, leaving her family behind forever. Regret gnaws at her to this day.

But now her husband is dead, and her children need her again. She hurries to collect them, in the personage of a fictional “Aunt Leah.” She then learns that her enemies are on her trail, and they are men she knows well, very ruthless and very good at what they do.

Leah, however, can face them on her own ground, far from cities and the internet. In addition to that, she has an ally she knows nothing about – one who may save her family, but possibly at the price of her life.

As I’ve mentioned before, I try to avoid stories with female protagonists, especially in action roles. I like to keep the violence directed at, and inflicted by, males. In Never Far Away, a male action character is introduced, which I appreciated, but my protective instincts were still pretty heavily engaged. This book, therefore, scored high in dramatic tension. And that is, of course, what thrillers are all about.

Recommended, with cautions for language and intense situations.

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The dragon is home

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The video above is very short, but it combines two topics I’ve written about before. The replica Viking ship shown is the Dragon Harald Fairhair, whose adventures and travails I’ve discussed often. (It was, for a time, the largest Viking ship replica in the world.) It sat in drydock in Mystic, Connecticut for several years, and I wondered if it would ever return to Norway. But I’m happy to report that they got it back this past year. (I think it was this past year. Recently, anyway.)

In this clip, a crew of untrained volunteers are attempting to row her, at last summer’s Viking Festival Karmøy, which I attended, in all my splendor, back in 2022. That was the year we were celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Hafrsfjord, where King Harald Fairhair (according to legend) unified Norway as a kingdom. It was often commented at the time that the Dragon should have been there, as she had been built just across the sound in Haugesund, and was named after Harald. This video is evidence that she made it to the festival this year.

I can rest easy now.

Also because I finally got my Medicare supplement applied for. Here’s a hint from a grizzled veteran – if some organization or medical practice puts you in touch with somebody who’s supposed to “help you navigate your choices,” they’re in fact hooking you up with a salesman, who’ll try to sell you the product they represent. I tried two such services, and they both offered me the same plan – one which did not include my personal physician in its network.

Today I went straight to medicare.gov, and walked myself through their process. I ended up with a number of incomprehensible options, and finally made a decision – doubtless a bad one, but it’s done now.

Religion, Uncategorized

Routine disrupted. Will I survive?

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Photo credit: Daiga Ellaby. Unsplash+ license.

Free associating tonight. I’m reading a new Michael Koryta book, which I’m enjoying a lot, but it will take a day or two to finish it. I could look for some music to post, but perceive no cranial lightbulbs in that area.

I can’t imagine why anyone would care to know about this, but I’ve been breaking up my schedule a little lately. My custom from time immemorial has been to post at 6:00 p.m., my time, a while after I’d had supper. But tonight I have an appointment at that hour to talk on the phone, with somebody who’s supposed to be able to help me navigate the turbid waters of Medicare supplement plans. I’ve been working with the same company ever since I went onto Mandatory Old Folks’ Medical Welfare. (It does no good explaining to Leftists that the whole thing could probably be done more cheaply in a private system. Numbers are purely theoretical to the Left. They care not for mere numbers. They care about parading their compassion before men, through the vicarious machinery of government.) But that company has decided not to insure people in Minnesota anymore (one wonders why anyone at all would insure people in Minnesota under any circumstances), and I must find a new carrier.

So I’m posting early tonight.

On Mondays I’ll henceforth be posting early as a (new) rule, because I’ve gotten involved in a men’s Bible Study group at my church.

If you’re a normal, healthy person, you’ll have no idea how big a deal that is in my life.

I’ve been a shy guy ever since certain awful stuff (I’ll spare you the details) happened to me when I was about nine, transforming me from an outgoing, talkative child to a diffident, timid wallflower. I made a group of very close friends in college, and did musical ministry with them for several years. After we broke up as a group we grew apart, and I’ve been disappointed by the way almost all of them have changed their views. This has made me reluctant to make new Christian friends – I’ve conceived an irrational fear that I’m a bad influence (Despair.com used to have a poster that said, “The only consistent element in all your disappointing relationships is you”).

But I found that I fit in with this group of guys from the first evening. They’re not a solemn bunch, though solemn things get discussed. We tell, and appreciate, dumb jokes. They’ve given me space to participate in the meetings as I feel comfortable, and to hold back where I don’t.

I had not expected this. I’ve grown paranoid in my old age, and the two years of Covid quarantine helped to cement that. It’s one of my misfortunes (or sins) that I handle solitude pretty well. I feel lonely from time to time, of course, but I always reflect that I’d rather be lonely than threatened and bullied, and threatening and bullying is what I expect from my fellow man. Better to be safe than sorry. I’ve been attending this church for a good decade now, I think, but I’ve always just attended Sunday services and scooted for the door. Better to remain a stranger, I figured, than to subject my Christian brethren to my baleful acquaintance. I’d likely offend them, or look like a fool. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that they won’t like me.

The men’s Bible study has neatly punctured this defensive presumption. What the long-term consequences may be remain to be seen. I will certainly not be rushing into anything.

Still, it’s nice to have some nearby friends again.

I seem to recall something in the Bible about not neglecting gathering together.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Bad Man,’ by Stanley Elkin

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“If the question is can I take it, the answer is no. Regularity is what I know best. I have contributed to the world’s gloom, I acknowledge that. But I have always picked on victims. Victims are used to it. Irregularity is what they know best. They don’t even feel it. I feel it. It gives me the creeps.”

I picked up Stanley Elkin’s A Bad Man by mistake, thinking I was getting a book by some other author. But, having bought it, I gave it a chance. It wasn’t exactly my kind of book, and Elkin isn’t my kind of author, but I can’t deny the book was unexpectedly entertaining.

Think of Kafka’s “The Trial.” Think of Catch-22. Think (a little) of the Book of Job. That’s what A Bad Man is like, sort of.

Leo Feldman is a self-made man. He built his peddler father’s pushcart business up into a large department store – chiefly through black market dealing during World War II. He did not serve himself, due to a congenital health problem – the fetus of a vestigial twin, lodged in his chest next to his heart. If it ever moves, it could kill him.

In the basement of his store, he ran an off-the-books business – not retail, but trading favors, providing referrals to illegal services – abortions, or drugs, or prostitutes. So he was not greatly surprised when the police came for him one day.

He ends up in a penitentiary without a real-world analogue – a modern, high-security complex located in a large tract of no-man’s land. He discovers that the prisoners’ lives are governed by strict rules laid down by the god-like Warden – strict but fluid rules, constantly changing, sometimes mutually contradictory. Whenever Feldman thinks he’s found a way to get by, the Warden stymies him, and once again he finds himself alone, an outcast among outlaws.

What makes the book fascinating is its dark comedy. None of the major characters is really sympathetic. Feldman is, as the Warden terms him, “a bad man.” He has lived a life of greed and petty cruelties. The Warden is god-like, but he’s a petty god – loveless and cruel in his own way. Thus all Feldman’s misfortunes and sufferings are deserved, and often poetic. But the system itself is just as cruel.

Stanley Elkins’ style does a lot to make A Bad Man a fun read. He delights in puns and plays on words – “Little children suffered him.” When the Warden speaks of a small grove of trees he has provided for the inmates’ recreation, he says, “This is your copse, you robbers…!”

What is this book about? It may be a cosmic complaint about the world – the Warden may, indeed, be meant to represent God. It may be a satire on America, from a Jewish perspective. It may be a liberal satire on capitalism.

Whatever it is, I found A Bad Man surprisingly entertaining, far more than I would have expected if I’d known what I was buying. Recommended, for literate grownups.

Fiction, Reviews

‘After That, the Dark,’ by Andrew Klavan

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He was thinking about this when the waiter brought the check to him. Gwendolyn made a motion toward her purse.

“Now, now,” he said, “don’t try any of that twenty-first-century stuff with me.”

“You’re right, she said. “It’s a rotten century. I only stay for the antibiotics.”

It has become a tradition for me to purchase and savor each new Cameron Winter book by Andrew Klavan as soon as it comes out, and to tell the world what a pleasure that annual event has become in my life. After That, the Dark is the fifth in the series, and I enjoyed it, though (I must admit) a little less than I expected. That is for reasons which author Klavan has no doubt anticipated and discounted in his own mind. I’ll get to that.

Cameron Winter, our continuing hero, is a former assassin for a super-secret government division which no longer exists. After its dissolution, he reinvented himself as an English professor, He now teaches at a small college somewhere in the Midwest.

A thread that ties the books together is his conversations with his psychologist Margaret, who is helping him work through his old traumas and sins. Recently she has been particularly interested in his relationship (or reluctance to initiate a relationship) with Gwendolyn Lord, a widow he met a couple books ago, with whom he struck immediate sparks.

In After That, the Dark, Cameron finally asks her out, only to be blindsided by how well it goes. The two are not simply compatible – they click together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. And in this story, the investigation is sparked, not as usual by Cameron’s sixth sense for hidden mysteries in crimes in the news, but by a puzzle posed by Gwendolyn herself. She tells him about a friend who works in a prison, where a “locked room” murder occurred. A prisoner, who had been strip-searched, is found shot to death with a nail gun in a padded, locked cell.

Cameron goes to the prison town to look into the matter. He is not aware that he’s at the center of a conspiracy, among the moves and countermoves of highly placed, faceless, ruthless chess players. Cameron is a gifted operative, and he’ll need all his gifts to survive this one.

Was After That, the Dark fun to read? Sure was. Was it as good as its predecessors? Maybe not quite – I’m not sure.

My main problem was moral. Gwendolyn, Cameron’s new love interest, is an open and devoted Christian. Yet (minor spoiler alert) she falls straight into bed with him at the first opportunity. I could have understood that plot point if it were treated as a mistake, but in the aftermath she justifies it, saying that they were clearly made for each other by God, so it must be okay.

Andrew Klavan is a wise and perceptive writer. Surely he’s aware that everybody who’s ever fallen in love feels exactly the same way.

It should be noted that Klavan is a convert to Christianity, and comes to the topic from a different angle than “cradle Christians” like me. Also that these books are not intended as “Christian fiction” in the same way that the average CBA book is.

Nevertheless, that rationalization for premarital sex is, in my opinion, too predictable and conventional for a writer of Andrew Klavan’s considerable wisdom.

Otherwise, highly recommended.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture