I almost liked this book very much. In the end I wasn’t quite satisfied, but there’s a lot to be said for it.
The hero of Dangerous Behavior (first volume in a series) is Dr. David Rothberg, who has recently taken a job as a psychological counselor at an upstate New York prison, for various complicated personal reasons. His first challenge is a big one – he’s supposed to do an evaluation for a parole recommendation on Victor Janko, “the baby carriage killer.” This man was convicted years ago of murdering a young woman while her baby daughter watched. Victor doesn’t seem like the type to commit such a crime – but then, murderers often don’t. Is he a very devious psychopath, or could he possibly be genuinely innocent?
Complicating the evaluation are Victor’s manipulative murder-groupie girlfriend, and a sadistic prison guard whom David knows to be abusing Victor.
I have to say that Dangerous Behavior did a great job of keeping my interest. I actually sat up late to finish this book, something I don’t often do at my age.
However, I thought the plotting was a little forced; characters sometimes seemed to break character in order to make dramatic points happen. Also, the climax was surprisingly understated. In addition, the portrayal of a Catholic priest hinted at an authorial attitude that usually bodes ill for me as a reader.
I don’t know if I’ll pick the sequel up or not. Nevertheless, I have to admit that Dangerous Behavior was a good read overall.
‘The Hitlers and Mussolinis of the picture world,’ said George, ‘What do they do? They ship these assortments of New York playwrights and English novelists out here and leave it all to them. Outside talent don’t get a chance.’
The quote above is self-referential. P. G. Wodehouse was both a New York playwright (in the musical comedy line) and an English novelist, and he had, indeed, been imported to Hollywood in 1929 to work on scripts for a while. He didn’t fit in and left little visible trace on celluloid, but he did mine the experience for comedy in his novels and stories. One of his most explicit Hollywood novels is Laughing Gas (which doesn’t seem to be available as an e-book, or even as a reasonably priced paperback, right now. But the link will take you to an audible book).
Reggie Swithin has recently inherited the title of Earl of Havershot, but he still hasn’t accustomed himself to that status. So he hasn’t the resistance to refuse the family solicitor’s request that he travel to Hollywood, California to disentangle his cousin Egmont from some American girl (who certainly must be inappropriate) to whom he’s gotten engaged.
On the train trip across the American continent, Reggie meets the beautiful April June, a famous movie star, who confides to him that she hates her life of glamor and longs for a simple home where she can be with her books and her flowers and her cooking… why, Reggie’s ancestral manor sounds like just the place!
Reggie is working up his nerve to propose to her as he arrives in Hollywood, where he meets the girl Cousin Eggy is engaged to – awkwardly, she turns out to be Ann Bannister, to whom Reggie himself was once briefly engaged. Then Reggie has an attack of toothache. In the dentist’s office, he finds that another Hollywood star, little Joey Cooley (“Idol of American motherhood”) is having the same procedure done by the dentist’s partner. As they are both under the influence of laughing gas at the same time, some sort of mix-up occurs (“probably in the fourth dimension,” Reggie thinks) and the soul of each transmigrates to the body of the other. Thus Reggie wakes to find himself very small, dressed in knickerbockers, and sporting long golden curls. He’s going to have to figure out how to live a child star’s life – which is made no easier by his guardian, a formidable woman who limits him to a diet based on prunes, to maintain his weight.
We only learn through hearsay what’s happening with Joey, in Reggie’s body, but the boy seems to have a good time. He can get all the sweets he wants now, and there are a lot of people he’s been dreaming of boffing on the nose; Reggie has a healthy young body with a good right arm and boxing training.
And so the story proceeds. Reggie will learn to view April June from a whole new perspective, and will also learn to appreciate ice cream and breakfast sausage in a whole new way. In the end, of course, everything will turn out for the best.
I have to admit I didn’t enjoy Laughing Gas as much as I remembered from my first reading, long ago. It’s not because the story is a poor one; it’s not. It’s just that, for personal reasons, I have trouble with stories about kids in general. It was interesting, though, to see how Wodehouse looked at Hollywood from personal experience.
This is the fourth week of Advent. Christmas Day is next Sunday. With many great Christmas carols, I had to choose a song that leans into Christmas today in order to have room for another one next week.
This traditional English carol was written by Luke Wadding (1628–87), bishop of Ferns, County Wexford, Ireland. The third verse appears to have been added to the original at some point, but songs and hymns aren’t particularly set in stone anyway. The tune is also traditional, arranged by the great Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958).
1 On Christmas night all Christians sing, to hear the news the angels bring; on Christmas night all Christians sing, to hear the news the angels bring: news of great joy, news of great mirth, news of our merciful King’s birth.
2 Then why should we on earth be sad, since our Redeemer made us glad: then why should we on earth be sad, since our Redeemer made us glad: when from our sin he set us free, all for to gain our liberty.
3 When sin departs before Your grace, then life and health come in its place; when sin departs before Your grace, then life and health come in its place; angels and men with joy may sing, all for to see the new-born King.
4 All out of darkness we have light which made the angels sing this night; all out of darkness we have light which made the angels sing this night: “Glory to God and peace to men, now and forevermore. Amen.”
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
...
The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.
Easy Photo Fakes: With advancing artificially intelligent image generators, creating convincing pics from a handful of social media posts is fairly easy. The better images AI can create, the more dangerous it is to everyone. Maybe we should take our photos offline.
Why Journalists Fall for Hoaxes: “Every hoax in America the past 200 years originated in the news business, or passed through it. When the world moved much slower, hoaxes were publicity stunts carried out by newspapers.”
Beethoven and Christmas: “If beauty will save the world it must be qualified that love will save the world. Because in beauty we find love. In finding beauty and the love that governs it, we are always directed to the Christ who came into our lives and taught us how to love. St. Augustine said that we often first come to know God (who is Love) through the love of others and the love that others show us.”
And though this is not Beethoven, it’s a good Christmas share.
Three original arrangements by Tony Glausi, “A Christmas Jazz Medley”
I am delighted to be able to announce that King of Rogaland, the sixth book in the Saga of Erling Skjalgsson, is available for Kindle download as of today. Makes a great Christmas present for Kindle readers.
‘I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I’ve got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the light of love in her eyes. I don’t know how to account for it, but it is so.’
I am at one of those points in life where I find it prudent to re-read beloved books from my past, rather than spend money on new ones. Having made that determination, it was but the work of a moment for me to ankle off to the bookshelf and pull a book out of my P. G. Wodehouse shelf. And so I offer my review of Carry On, Jeeves.
The characters of Bertie and Jeeves first appear in a story called “Extricating Young Gussie”, (not in this collection) which was published in 1915. In it, Bertie is dispatched to New York by his formidable Aunt Agatha, because his cousin Gussie has formed an ill-advised attachment to a vaudeville performer. Bertie crosses the Atlantic on this mission, but in the end the whole thing is resolved through a farcical coincidence.
What’s rummy about this story (as Wodehouse himself would have put it) is that, first of all, we’re never told Bertie’s last name (it appears, in fact, to be Mannering-Phipps). Also, Jeeves does nothing brainy at all. He answers doors and takes people’s hats. That’s it. This is a nascent Jeeves and Wooster story. The concept remains in embryo.
It wasn’t until the next story, “The Artistic Career of Corky” (1916), that Wodehouse faced the challenge of solving a plot problem without letting Bertie do anything smart, which would violate his character. It was then that he hit on the idea of making Jeeves a super-intellect. And a wonderful phenomenon came into being.
“The Artistic Career of Corky” is included in the collection, Carry On, Jeeves. But its first story is “Jeeves Takes Charge” (also published in 1916). Here we get the origin story, as “rebooted” (as they say of movie franchises) by Wodehouse himself. The story opens with a wonderful scene in which Bertie, hung-over and temporarily valet-less, opens his door to “a kind of darkish sort of respectful Johnny” who immediately diagnoses his complaint and mixes up his proprietary anti-hangover concoction. Bertie engages him on the spot, and as the story continues, Jeeves contrives to disentangle him from an ill-advised engagement to Florence Cray (“seen sideways, most awfully good-looking”), who had a plan for “making something of him.”
And so it goes on through ten wonderful stories. Sometimes Bertie helps a friend out with a spot of matrimonial trouble. Sometimes Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia enlists him in an insane quest to steal some ridiculous object. It’s all light, implausible, and hilarious.
As I read, I couldn’t help thinking about Heaven (see my review on the book about Near Death Experiences, a few inches below). I think Heaven may turn out to be a lot like a Wodehouse story. We never grow old, and the world never changes (Wodehouse attempts to keep up with the times in a couple stories, but they jar). And above all stands the great God of whom Jeeves is a symbol, who (in this life, anyway) allows us to go our wayward ways, knowing that in the end we have no resource but Him, and no one who cares more for our welfare.
The breeze died. The high white sun leaned its tropic weight on the gaudy vacation strip of Florida’s East Coast, so that it lay sunstruck, lazy and humid and garish, like a long brown sweaty woman stretched out in sequins and costume jewelry.
Another classic John D. MacDonald book, non-Travis McGee variety, from The Murder Room. The Beach Girls is an interesting, often impressive tale stressing humans and society more than crime (though there’s some crime). These old paperbacks were intended for a male audience, so there’s also quite a lot of sex, though it’s not explicit. Very little monogamy is on display.
Stebbins’ Marina in Elihu Beach, Florida is a marginal operation. Its owner, an amiable widow, can’t afford to maintain it properly, and local interests are pressuring her to sell it to developers.
But the marina is home to a motley group of boat owners – local fishermen, poor boat bums and rich yacht owners. There are a couple stinkers among them, but most of them get along happily in a live-and-let-live way.
When Leo Rice shows up looking for work, something seems off about him. He’s nice enough, and he’s willing to learn and to work hard. There’s no arrogance about him. But he doesn’t seem to match the story he tells about himself. He has the look of a man used to bigger things, greater responsibilities.
Leo has a secret. He’s got an issue with one of the residents, one of the bad types nobody likes. He came for revenge, but now he can see that he’s not tough enough for that job. And he’s suddenly interested in Christy, one of the marina residents, a girl who’s been damaged in the past and put on a clown’s persona. Is he willing to die trying to get justice, or does he have a future with Christy?
The Beach Girls offers a very fine author’s human insight, empathy, and powers of observation. The mores of the time it describes are very different from ours, and will probably disturb conservatives and liberals alike. The sex is pretty free and easy in this little community, but there’s also a passage that seems to defend wife-beating (in an extreme case). Approach such passages with your sense of history in place.
I am no longer a young man. Occasionally, when I haven’t been dulling my reason sufficiently, I think about death. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that it’s not being dead that bothers me (especially as I believe in Heaven), but rather the actual process of dying that I find daunting. Seems like a pretty stressful exercise to put an old person through.
So when I found a deal on a Christian book called Real Near Death Experience Stories (by Randy Kay and Shaun Tabatt), I figured there might be some comfort in it.
It was comforting, for a Christian reader. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it awfully convincing.
The book consists of transcriptions of interviews conducted on the authors’ podcast, plus an introductory chapter about near death experiences in general. Everybody involved, the authors and their guests alike, seem sincere and seem to be people of good will. They tell lovely stories about how they’ve experienced death or near-death, and the wonderful (occasionally frightening) things they saw in Heaven (and in one case, in Hell).
Let me be clear. I absolutely believe in Heaven and Hell. I believe that Heaven is a place of eternal bliss, in the presence of the Triune God. I believe that Hell is a place where the unredeemed will suffer for eternity. So I don’t doubt that part.
It’s the extras. Having described their “go toward the light” experiences and the joys and beauties of Heaven, in several cases the interviewees go on to proclaim spiritual secrets (claiming in some cases that they have new revelations for the church in the end times). Tips on how to make it easier for miracles to happen in your life. That sort of thing.
It all sounded familiar to me. I used to hear this kind of thing a lot back in the ‘70s, during the Jesus Movement. All these stories were going around about miracles and visions and prophecies – which always happened somewhere else, never here. And the big message of it all was that Jesus was coming soon – certainly before the end of ‘80s or thereabouts.
For a lot of people, I think, the failure of these prophecies was an important element in their complete loss of faith. I got the idea, when I was reading science fiction, that 70% of the SiFi writers of my generation were embittered former Jesus Freaks. I was blessed to have a better scriptural grounding than these people, and I held onto my faith.
But when the interviewees in this book tell me, for instance, that Jesus in Heaven has blue eyes, or when another tells me that we have to let our “spirits” rule our “brains,” and that contemporary praise music is an essential weapon against demons, I am dubious.
I don’t really endorse the book Near Death Experience Stories. I have no doubt the authors (and the interviewees) are sincere. They’re probably even doing some good. But I don’t have confidence in them. “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:28, ESV)
Diarist Phyllis Warner found that she and fellow Londoners were surprised by their own resilience. “Finding we can take it is a great relief to most of us,” she wrote on September 22. “I think that each one of us was secretly afraid that he wouldn’t be able to, that he would rush shrieking to shelter, that his nerve would give, that he would in some way collapse, so that this has been a pleasant surprise.”
Author Erik Larson has found himself a useful and profitable niche, writing about famous characters and events in historical accounts that combine the actions of famous persons with the lives of ordinary people, to give us a many-faceted picture. The Splendid and the Vile is his account of London during the Blitz; mostly set in the crucial year of 1940. The spotlight is, naturally, on Winston Churchill and his closest circle – his cabinet ministers and department heads, and his family. But we also get to see events through the eyes of ordinary citizens. And from time to time he looks across the channel to see how Hitler and his henchmen – who couldn’t understand why Churchill repeatedly snubbed their “friendly” peace offers — reacted and responded.
And meanwhile, the ordinary public suffered, died, and (most of them) survived.
It was a harrowing time, and this is a harrowing book. But also fascinating, informative, and sometimes even darkly comic. Historical figures come alive through their own words. The great drama and surprise in the book is something neither Hitler, nor even Churchill, really foresaw – the amazing courage of the English people; what they were willing to endure to defend their civilization.
What troubled me most as I read was something not in the book – the knowledge that this epic crusade for western civilization would end in the abandonment of eastern Europe to Stalin. Plus the knowledge that the children and grandchildren of these brave people would happily accede to the demolition of that civilization in our time.
Still and all, The Splendid and the Vile is an excellent look at a pivotal point in history. Highly recommended.
The story of Charles Mulli, chronicled in the documentary, Mully, would have offered a remarkable story even without its amazing second act. But that second act is nothing less than astonishing.
I was late in seeing this film, which I’ve known about since its release in 2017. One of its co-producers, Lukas Behnken, happens to be the son of one of my oldest friends, my college roommate Dixey Behnken. I should have believed what Dixey told me about it.
Charles Mulli was born in poverty in a village in Kenya. One morning when he was six, he woke to discover his family had disappeared overnight – they’d just moved away, leaving him behind. Then followed years of living on the street and begging, until he finally found work. He worked hard and made his way up the corporate pyramid, eventually owning his own bus company and becoming regional distributor for an oil company. He was a genuinely rich man in a genuinely poor country.
Then one day some street boys hijacked his car. Riding home on one of his own buses, Charles couldn’t keep himself from thinking about the boys who robbed him. They were himself, he realized, as he might have been. As a Christian, he felt a divine call to do something about it.
So he went onto the streets, found a couple homeless kids, and took them home with him. Then more. Then even more. He never stopped. His wife and children didn’t know how to deal with it, especially when he sent his own kids away to boarding school in order to make room for more orphans. Finally they all moved to a big new facility, and they established Mully Children’s Family, a wide-ranging enterprise that raises food and earns profits which are then poured back into several large children’s homes.
“Mully” relates this moving story through dramatic recreations and filmed interviews. It’s all fascinating and riveting – sometimes hardly believable. Inspirational. Deeply challenging.
Highly recommended. I watched it on Amazon Prime, but you can see it for free here.
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