Blogs, Socials, Bookselling

A Closed Bookstore, Blogroll, and Love for Eastern Lit or No?

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I’ve mentioned before that this blog shares a name with a bookstore but no other relationship. Brandywine Books of Winter Park, Florida, was a cute seller of used and well-kept book. The owner knew about our blog and I believe delighted in its existence. I know this because my sister stopped by a few years ago. The shop closed within the past two years.

Japanese readers are hooked on the belief that bestselling author Haruki Murakami should have won the Nobel for literature by now. The Japan Times claims Murakami is “best known for his 1987 bestseller Norwegian Wood,” but he has many other titles and presumably outpaces all other Japanese authors in sheer Nobel potential. The article notes a few reasons why he could contend for the prize and a few reasons he might not win it. (via Literary Saloon)

South Korea has been successfully exporting K-pop and K-drama for several years, but K-lit has not found a similar place. Perhaps the time for Korean literature has come. (via Literary Saloon)

Did Ernest Hemingway actually say, “The rain WILL stop, the night WILL end, the hurt WILL fade. Hope is never so lost that it can’t be found”? The Quote Investigator looks into it.

Author Glynn Young reviews the second Will Benson thriller, Blind Defence by John Fairfax, “so engrossing that the reader finds himself on the edge of his seat.”

The Cambridge Dictionary offers up a few new terms: nanolearning, cradle-to-career, and  panic master’s.

Photo: Power’s Hamburgers, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1993. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.Purchase; John Margolies 2015 (DLC/PP-2015:142).

Fiction, Reviews

‘Unnatural Death,’ by Dorothy L. Sayers

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Miss Climpson was one of those people who say: “I am not the kind of person who reads other people’s postcards.” This is clear notice to all and sundry that they are, precisely, that kind of person. They are not untruthful; the delusion is real to them. It is merely that Providence has provided them with a warning rattle, like that of the rattle-snake. After that, if you are so foolish as to leave your correspondence in their way, it is your own affair.

In the third volume of Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey series, Unnatural Death, the mystery comes along by accident. Lord Peter is having lunch with his friend and future brother-in-law, Inspector Parker, when the man at the next table interrupts their conversation, prompted by an overheard comment. He says he’s a doctor, and he knows of a situation that might have been murder, but he can’t prove it. An old woman under his care, who was living with her grandniece and heir, died suddenly, and something about the circumstances just strikes him as wrong. The old woman was dying of cancer, and had shown great reluctance to making a will. But he considers her death suspicious, though he can’t prove foul play. And he can’t imagine a motive, since the intended heir inherited as planned.

Insp. Parker isn’t much impressed, but Lord Peter is intrigued by the whole thing. He dispatches his faithful agent, the admirable spinster Miss Climpson, to ensconce herself in the town and learn what she can by way of gossip. Very gradually, a ruthless plot will be revealed. (Also, this may possibly be the first appearance in literature of a manner of secret murder that’s since become a cliché. But I’m not sure.)

Having read all these books before, I find Unnatural Death the one that left the least impression on me. I believe the problem was that the book is so slow-moving and talky. Everything gets talked over thoroughly in between actual events in the story, which are brutal but rare. It was, frankly, surprisingly dull work from a writer of Dorothy Sayers’ skill. Though the “moral” of the exercise was a good done.

Also, a warning needs to be added that 1920s attitudes toward race are on display here. By the standards of the time, I think Miss Sayers handled the black character in the story pretty well, making him a decent and sympathetic man. But her descriptions and language don’t fly well with the modern reader. There’s also a passing Jewish slur, unnecessary to the plot.

I recommend all the Lord Peter Wimsey books, but I suspect you’ll love Unnatural Death less than the others.

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Rant on Podcasts That Talk too Much

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Can I share my thoughts on podcasts for a minute? Are you okay with that? I mean, I can just share a few thoughts about a problem or two that I have with some podcasts—maybe two problems, I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud here.

If everyone’s okay with that, I’ll just share, and you don’t have to read it. I’m not saying you have to read anything I write here. That’s silly.

So, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll share a few thoughts on podcasts and then we’ll move on to regular blogging. Okay? Okay.

When Rush Limbaugh died earlier this year, I didn’t know what to say about him. I listened to his show for a several years in the 90s and 00s. He was a top-notch professional who put together the best talk show on radio. There were times I got tired of it (political news can drag somedays), but the other shows couldn’t keep up. I heard a bit from Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, but they just couldn’t fill the hour like Rush could.

I’m going blame him for training my ears to good radio. Now, I have a hard time listening to the way some people talk on air. Some podcast hosts just talk to much. That’s probably a common complaint. A couple podcasts I like say their listeners complain about too much friendly banter, saying they want solid conversation only. That’s not my complaint. Friends talking cheerily isn’t something I get often.

My complaint is something I’m calling structural talk or talking about talking. The best example of this is killing a joke with explanation. Some people can’t let a quip or witty remark go by naturally. They have to gut it and pull out its heart to diagram the funny.

A more common example of structural talk is what I demonstrated at the beginning of this post. When podcast episodes are an hour or longer and several minutes are burned with talking about what they’re going to talk about, I can’t continue to listen. Closely related to this are the hosts who explain their point into the ground. In both cases, the talkers are thinking with their mouths without empathy for their long-suffering listeners.

Brevity, you may have heard–I mean, you know this right? Stop me if you know this already–is the soul or heart or core, the important part is what I’m getting at–the central part of whit. That’s what brevity is.

Let me say this again /cut/

Authors, Religion

Keep Pilgrim’s Progress Humble

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Patrick Kurp notes that poet Charles Lamb wasn’t necessarily a fan of new, polished editions of Pilgrim’s Progress. At least, he said he wasn’t.

Bunyan’s book, for Lamb, is a model of Christian humility, not to be decked out in finery. Instead, Lamb would “. . . reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible. The Vanity Fair, and the pilgrims there—the silly soothness in his setting out countenance—the Christian idiocy (in a good sense) of his admiration of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains . . .”

Blogs, Socials, Fiction

Not alone in my madness

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My friend Gene Edward Veith posted today, on his Cranach blog, concerning a theory about Tom Bombadil, which he found at the GameRant website, by a Melissa C. The conclusion: “Tom Bombadil would be the equivalent of Adam.”

Although Dr. Veith is a self-confessed fan of my novels, it seems he doesn’t follow this blog. I advanced this theory sometime in the dear, dead long-ago, in the earlier version of Brandywine Books that was lost when we changed hosts. But I refer to it in this post from last year.

I hasten to clarify that I do not charge Melissa C. with plagiarism. The theory seems fairly obvious to me, for anyone familiar with the Bible.

I simply reserve the right to do a little gloating dance, in the presence of friends.

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Tribute to a helper: Paul Nash

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It occurred to me today that the tribute I posted on Monday to my friend and former boss Paul Nash, who died Saturday, was missing an important element.

I forgot to talk about his gift for helping. That’s a biblical gift (1 Cor. 12:28), and Paul had it to a greater degree than anyone I’ve ever known.

In the years I worked for him, I can’t recall ever hearing him turn anyone away who came to him for help. If he couldn’t help by himself, he could always think of someone on his extensive contacts list who’d be able to. Most of the time, though, he could help personally, because he was one of those omni-competent people who make lesser men feel inadequate. He was physically strong, and good with his hands, and he’d grown up on a farm and knew how to tinker with things. He knew work-arounds. He knew a trick or two they don’t teach you in school.

And he always had time. Even if the day was full of important phone calls and meetings (they usually were; his schedule was insane), he could take an hour or two to help you out. He could always finish the rest of his work later that night. Maybe he’d only get a few hours of sleep. Or none at all. Sleep was boring, anyway.

I’m not like that. I’m good for about two things in the world – writing (translation is a sub-category thereof), and acting/reading copy. If I try to help you out with any problem outside those areas, I’ll probably drop something or step on it or set something on fire.

I’m not sure whether the world needs a lot of people with my gifts. It never runs out of the need for people like Paul. He’ll be missed, by many, many people.

Reading, Religion

You Must Be Common afore You Be Oncommon

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Ronni Kurtz describes the encouragement he finds (along with Pip) in Great Expectations: Don’t long for a future time after you’ve studied and learned all the thing; be grateful for who you are today.

Well, Pip, be it so, or be it son’t, you must be a common scholar afore you can be a oncommone one, I should hope! The king upon his throne, with his crown upon his ‘ed, can’t sit and write his acts of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted Prince, with the alphabet–Ah! And begun at A too, and worked his way to Z.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘The Body Keeps the Score,’ by Bessel van der Kolk

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After trauma the world is experienced with a different nervous system that has an altered perception of risk and safety.

Some years back I read about a new psychiatric diagnosis called Complex PTSD. The idea is that symptoms displayed by children who’ve been subject to abuse over long periods of time are very similar to symptoms common to adults who suffer from PTSD due to trauma, as in combat. The difference is that the Complex kind is harder to treat. This is of considerable personal interest to me, for reasons I won’t detail here.

Somebody on Facebook mentioned this book, The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk, and I was intrigued enough to buy the Kindle version. Turns out Dr. van der Kolk is one of the researchers who came up with the idea of Complex PTSD (which has not to date been accepted for the APA’s book of recognized diagnoses).

The major argument made in this book is that many of our psychological disorders rise from trauma, and that trauma actually makes physical changes in the brain. Current treatment tends to lean toward drug therapy, which (the author argues) only masks the problem. What we need to do is help people to retrain their brains, to reorganize the various areas of the brain to work again in a normal fashion, instead of the abnormal ways they’ve adopted in order to cope with shocks they’ve suffered.

A number of treatments are suggested and evaluated, based on Dr. van der Kolk’s extensive personal experience as a clinician and researcher. These include yoga, biofeedback, and participation in drama.

I found the book largely persuasive (as if I were qualified to judge). I absolutely agree about Complex PTSD. I’m not so sure of the author’s strong defense of Suppressed Memory – he defends it strongly, but completely ignores the numerous cases where it has been used to persecute innocent people, such as day care workers. As a Christian, I’m dubious about yoga.

And the author spoiled it to some degree, for this reader, by his political conclusions. He sees it as self-evident that what will really solve our social problems is national health care and government preschools. I am personally doubtful that bureaucracies are ever going to fill our lives with empathy and caring.

The author is also prone to fall into the refrain of, “The medical establish has never appreciated my genius.” That does raise skepticism in this reader.

But most of the book is convincing, and all of it is worth reading. Recommended, with cautions for disturbing subject matter.

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R.I.P., Pastor Paul Nash

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I’m busy with translation work today, and I’m still reading the long book I’ve been working on. But I do have something to write about.

My friend and former boss, Pastor Paul M. Nash, passed into glory, far too young, on Saturday following hospitalization. I’m not sure of his exact age, but he was younger than me and – to all appearances – in better health.

It was Paul who hired me and brought me back home from Florida in 1995. Through the years I worked as his office assistant in the Home Missions Department of the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, we were sort of a Laurel and Hardy team, each complementing the other in terms of our strengths.

Paul was one of the godliest men I ever knew. He wasn’t just godly in his heart – he worked actively at his holiness. He disciplined himself and kept himself on a leash. I expect I was a disappointment to him in that arena.

Yet, unlike a lot of disciplined types, he was not grim or cheerless. Quite the contrary. Paul was always the life of the party. Things got interesting when Paul showed up. Laughter soon followed.

In many ways he reminds me of descriptions I’ve read of Hans Nielsen Hauge, the founder of our branch of Lutheran Pietism, of whom I’ve written often. Like Hauge, Paul was an A-type who had trouble sitting still, who always had to be doing something useful. He loved airplanes and flew them to facilitate travel for his ministry. He got up early and worked late, and figured there’d be plenty of time to rest after death. Which, sadly, has come.

After his retirement from Home Missions, he started a work called Shamgar Ministries. There’s a brief bio there.

Blogs, Socials, Poetry, Uncategorized

Nobel Prize for Lit, Blogrolls, and Other Reading

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We started this blog in May 2003. I’ve impressed very few people with my posts here. I would have benefitted by having an editor, someone to tell me to press on to a better idea or a better development of the idea I had.

My writing process, in case you’re wondering, is to think about a post for a while, begin to write it down, distract myself with tangents or diversions for far too long, and after a couple paragraphs shoved into the blog engine, to doubt the point of it all. As Descartes once quipped, I doubt therefore I’m not.

Blogs have changed a lot in the last twenty years. Most people chatter into social media apps and discussions board communities. Having a blog is no longer the easiest way to publish your words online, and one part of blogging that has gone the way of yesteryear’s Internet is the blogroll. Most blogs, even those updated infrequently, had lists of websites down one side to other blogs that they presumably admired and even read. One of our readers said he missed our blogroll when we moved to this WordPress platform, and because I’m nowhere near as smart as I used to think I was, I have now concluded I might start linking to other blogs in regular weekly posts. That’s not what a blogroll was, but that’s what I’m going to do.

The photo above is of The Donut Hole in La Puente, California, circa 1991, from the John Margolies Roadside America Photograph Archive. It’s a picture of the quality of another day. Let that inspire you.

The Literary Saloon has been going since Creation. I think it was the second blog to have ever been launched, right after Justin Hall created the first one from a faux-swarthy corner desk at Swarthmore College. They focus on international and translated fiction, so naturally they have the goods on the Nobel Prize for Literature this week. M.A. Orthofer notes, the books of winner Abdulrazak Gurnah haven’t sold much in the U.S. Only three thousand copies of all of the books combined.

“It’s not like his work hasn’t gotten any attention,” Orthofer says, “The New York Times has reviewed six of his novels — but they certainly do not seem to have found readers — no wonder his latest, Afterlives, hasn’t found a US publisher.”

Word, a poem by Andrew Frisardi that reads like spoken word, is in the Fall 2021 issue of Modern Age. (via Books, Inq. – Frank has been old-school blogging since 2005.)

October 9th is Leif Erickson Day, a day that has yet to catch much heat from those who demonize colonization. Erickson and crew stayed at L’Anse aux Meadows for many decades, well before Columbus landed in the south, and they didn’t take over the continent, which makes them more immigrants than colonialists.

Eudora Welty’s first collection of Southern gothic short stories was released in the fall of 1941, 80 years ago this season. I confess I haven’t read any of them yet, but that’s normal for me. I barely read as it is. Gregory McNamee of Kirkus Reviews offers this appreciation.