Reviews

Netflix film review: ‘The Professor and the Madman’

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Back in 2015, I read Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman (which I reviewed here) as part of my graduate school work. It was one of the few pleasures that course of study provided me. So I was delighted to learn that a movie had been made of the story, and that it was available on Netflix.

According to what I see online, star Mel Gibson (who plays Prof. James Murray, head of the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language project) was very unhappy with the way the film was made. He and writer Farhad Safinia sued the producers, and they finally came to an undisclosed settlement. Apparently the film we have is not the one Gibson dreamed of.

I’m glad I read about that after I’d seen the film, because what I saw pleased me immensely.

Overall, the movie covers events as described in the book. Dr. William Minor (Sean Penn), an American military surgeon unbalanced by his experiences in the Civil War, murders an innocent London laborer, under the delusion that he is an Irishman who’s been persecuting him. Judged insane, Minor is confined to the Broadmoor Insane Asylum. His life begins to find some focus again when he answers Prof. Murray’s appeal for volunteers to hunt out historical citations of various English words for the dictionary. Working obsessively with books allowed him by the asylum director, he provides the project with a much-needed boost.

Meanwhile, Prof. Murray, who lacks a university degree but got his position through plain expertise in languages, suffers professional and social opposition from the scholars at Oxford University Press. A long-distance friendship arises between him and Dr. Minor, but it’s only when he finally goes to present Minor with a first printing of part of the work that he discovers his friend is a madman.

Meanwhile, Minor – though still delusional about many things, is tormented by guilt and attempts to get his pension money conveyed to his victim’s widow. At first she rejects his help angrily, but in time her genuine desperation and his genuine remorse result in a strange affection – leading to a shocking outcome.

As in all dramatic productions, events are rearranged and re-molded to suit the creators’ vision. And dramatic moments happen that never happened in our world. But the film’s vision, as I perceived it, was a very fine one. It has to do with guilt and forgiveness and love, and the importance of work in our lives. It doesn’t rise quite to the level of Christianity, but there are Christian themes all over the place.

The depiction of Victorian England is rich and convincing. The performances are excellent.

My one great complaint is that in one scene, a character – an Oxford scholar, no less – misuses the phrase, “begs the question.” That just isn’t done, old man.

Cautions for very disturbing scenes of violence and insanity. Not for the kids.

Uncategorized

“Except for the porridge”

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In pursuit of my mission to enlighten the world on Norwegian Christmas customs, I offer the clever TV commercial above, complete with English subtitles.

It will help your comprehension to know that the “nisse” is roughly what the English would call a brownie, or possibly a gnome. He is distinguished by his characteristic red cap. Every farm has at least one, and they control the farm’s luck. Get on his wrong side and he’ll sour the milk, sicken the livestock, sabotage the equipment, etc. My maternal grandmother’s father, according to my mother, blamed everything that went wrong on his farm on the smågubbe, the “little old man,” who was the same as the nisse (like the elves, they prefer it if you don’t use their name).

One matter of supreme importance in coexisting with the nisse is the Christmas porridge (julegrøt). The nisse expects to get a bowlful of the family’s Christmas porridge every Christmas Eve. You leave it out in the barn for him. He especially requires that a generous pat of butter be placed on top. Neglect that, and you can expect a very bad year. Sometimes it’s the farm owner’s fault, and sometimes the fault of a lazy servant. It makes no difference. The nisse must have his due. (I wonder who screwed up last Christmas.)

Tine is a popular brand of butter in Norway, and they did themselves proud with this charming and technically excellent ad, a few years back.

Music

Some Children See Him like Themselves

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“Some children see him bronzed and brown,
The lord of heav’n to earth come down;
Some children see him bronzed and brown,
With dark and heavy hair.”

I appreciate artwork depicting Christ Jesus as someone in a different ethnic context than he lived. I suppose that should go without saying, since we tend to understand Jesus of Nazareth did not look like the Romanized figure we most recognize. If we depict him in a painting at all, we’re going to depict him as we are.

Alfred Burt wrote the music to this Christmas carol for his family Christmas card in 1951, a tradition his father started in 1922. Alfred wrote fifteen such carols, including “The Star Carol” and “Caroling, Caroling.” You can see all of the cards and songs on this tribute page.

The carols were known primarily to those who received the cards until Burt was invited to the King Family Christmas party and introduced a various Hollywood people. That emboldened him to get enough material together for an album, which was released in 1954.

The King family was something of a big deal last century. I haven’t heard of them, but they sang as an ever-growing family for decades and had their own variety show in the mid-60s. In 1967, they put together a live Christmas special that offered viewers this special moment of a son returning from Vietnam while she sang of him on stage.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Victims of Foul Play, by Patricia Lubeck

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I feel a little badly about reviewing this book. It was not written by a professional, and does not pretend to literary quality. It’s aimed at a very small public. But I read it as a favor to someone, and I feel that calls for a review.

On a December morning in 1961, farmer Clarence Larson of rural Garvin, Minnesota called for a neighbor’s help. His wife was dead, her body wrapped around the power take-off of their tractor. He said she’d been helping him “elevate” some corn into a bin (a procedure employing an augur in a chute; I know it well) when she got caught in the mechanism. (This was not uncommon; I heard many stories of people losing arms in power take-offs when I was a kid, and I knew a guy whose brother was killed by one of them.) However, in this case, an unexplained injury to the back of the woman’s head, plus the condition of the body, along with the presence of a new insurance policy, aroused suspicions. The county, however, was unable to prove Clarence’s guilt to a jury, and he went free.

Clarence moved to Tracy, Minnesota, and remarried. In 1980, his new wife disappeared. She failed to show up for regular appointments, and left behind personal possessions to which she’d been attached. When people asked about her, Larson gave conflicting explanations. The county sheriff called in the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (which you may know from John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport novels), and even a psychic. But sufficient evidence was never found to convict Larson of murder.

Patricia Lubeck’s book, Victims of Foul Play, is a bald and artless chronological account of events. There can be no doubt that the author believes Larson got away with murder. But in the end, she leaves us with the same thing the authorities had to accept: the man was a clever murderer who managed to hide any really incriminating evidence.

Victims of Foul Play will be of interest to people interested in the local history of Lyon County, Minnesota. I can’t recommend it to anyone else. It is not well written.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Quantum Kill,’ by Blake Banner

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“Of course you are. You’re James Bond cleverly disguised as an inbred redneck.”

“Thanks, I love you too. Actually, in my experience, most rednecks I have met were very fine people with solid values. And the worst inbreds I’ve met were among the European aristocracies and the Boston Brahmins.”

Harry Bauer, hero of Blake Banner’s Cobra series, is an assassin working for a private security firm that contracts to the government (for deniability). He is deadly and efficient and ruthless, but he has a code – he only kills the worst of the worst.

So he’s surprised when, as Quantum Kill opens, his bosses call him out of a well-earned vacation, asking him to do a job entirely outside his wheelhouse. There’s a woman (they won’t tell him who) at a certain place in Canada. Harry is to pick her up and transport her to Washington DC by a certain date, by a devious route he can work out for himself.

When he finally meets the woman, she’s a puzzle. She’s attractive, but strangely distant and affectless. She makes no effort to make friends, but soon they have more to worry about than their relations, when hit teams locate them – they can’t figure out how – and Harry has to do what he does best to keep her alive. It gets more puzzling when he figures out that the hit teams are CIA.

As they take a roundabout route as far out of their way as the Azores, the barriers between them start to break down. But more is going on than Harry and his employers have been told, and in the end he will resolve the problem through doing what he does best, in a shocking but oddly satisfying climax.

I’ve read some of Blake Banner’s books outside the Cobra series, and I was disappointed in certain attitudes and plot elements, especially in religious matters. But in this series, I haven’t had that problem – such opinions as Harry Bauer expresses generally please me.

I’m torn a bit as to how strongly I should recommend this series to our readers. In terms of reading pleasure, it’s top notch. My interest never flagged from the first page to the last (and as I grow older, flagging interest is a problem I have increasingly as I read). But the violence is harsh and stark and uncompromising. I feel a certain amount of guilt for enjoying it so much.

But enjoy it I do.

Poetry

Who Wrote the Footprints Poem?

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One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

This is the start of the famous, anonymously written “Footprints” poem. Many have tried to establish ownership. Justin Taylor makes a few notes and points out an introduction to one of Spurgeon’s sermons that takes the footprints in the sand imagery in a better direction than the poem did.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Moon Is Down,’ by John Steinbeck

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Tom wiped his forehead. “If we get through, we’ll tell them, sir but—well, I’ve heard it said that in England there are still men in power who do not dare to put weapons in the hands of common people.”

Orden stared at him. “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that. Well, we can only see. If such people still govern England and America, the world is lost, anyway. Tell them what we say, if they will listen. We must have help, but if we get it”—his face grew very hard—“if we get it, we will help ourselves.”

In 1940, author John Steinbeck spoke with Pres. Roosevelt and began doing volunteer work with government intelligence and information agencies. He spoke to Col. William “Wild Bill” Donovan of the OSS about the need for effective Allied propaganda for distribution in occupied countries. This led him to write a short novel called The Moon Is Down.

The Moon Is Down begins with the invasion of a small town in a country that resembles (but is not identical with) Norway. The town falls with minimal bloodshed, because a local businessman – a collaborationist – has prepared the way for the occupiers (who are obviously German but not specifically identified as such). The officers take up residence in part of the Mayor’s Palace. Mayor Orden seems a strangely passive leader – he considers himself the voice of the people, and he isn’t sure yet what the people think about all this.

Over time the people’s opinion becomes very clear. They hate the occupiers and will do everything they can to obstruct them, especially through slowing and sabotaging the work at the local coal mine. The reader spends a lot of time with the occupying officers, who are little happier about the situation than the locals. They‘d expected to be greeted as friends and heroes, but instead found constant hatred and ostracism, which saps their spirit.

In the end, major sacrifices will be demanded of the locals, but they are sacrifices they are willing to make – because you can’t suppress free people forever.

The Moon Is Down is an effective story – though a little rose-colored for my taste. The author’s professed confidence in the resilience of free men seems a little naïve in light of recent history – give the enemies of freedom control of the media and education for a couple generations, and we’ve seen what they can do. Editor Donald V. Coers, in his introduction, makes much of the surprising fact that the book was harshly criticized by American liberals (prominently Clifton Fadiman and James Thurber), who condemned it for humanizing the occupiers rather than demonizing them. But Steinbeck seems to have been right, because the citizens of occupied countries found the book highly evocative of their own experience. Thousands of illegal copes were cranked out on mimeograph machines (if you’re as old as I am you might remember how much work that entailed) and secretly distributed all over Europe.

I first learned of the existence of The Moon Is Down while reading The Jøssing Affair, which I reviewed a few days back. I was surprised I’d never seen it mentioned before, but having read it, I think I know why. Modern leftists find the liberty Steinbeck celebrates here a little excessive, especially the parts (more than one) where he celebrates the importance of owning weapons.

The Moon Is Down is a simple book that reads almost like a stage play (it was, of course, made into a play as well). Worth reading for the quality of the writing, and for a look into an older, wiser kind of liberalism.

Uncategorized, Writing

Maybe Effective Communication is More than 7 Percent Verbal

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From our You Have Heard It Said But I Tell You desk, is only 7 percent of effective communication verbal?

Many people will note the importance of body language to being trusted or persuasive, and they may say spoken words are only 7 percent of communication, the rest being 38 percent tone of voice and 55 percent body language. Where did this idea come from?

It comes from reports on the communication research of Albert Mehrabian of UCLA during the 1960s. Philip Yaffe describes the two studies for Ubiquity. In one study, Mehrabian had his test subjects judge the emotion of a woman saying “maybe” in one of three different ways and then seeing a photo of her expressing these emotions. They guessed correctly more often after seeing the photo than by tone of voice alone.

In the other study, Mehrabian gave nine words, spoken in three different ways, and asked subjects to judge the emotion expressed. He concluded tone of voice carries a lot of weight in communication.

You can think it through yourself. Imagine the words “maybe” and “thanks” said in three different ways that would clue you in to what the person was saying. The excited maybe that hopes it works out, the uncommitted maybe, and the maybe that doesn’t want to say no to your face, at least in the moment. Nobody needed research to work this out. Was this Mehrabian’s actual conclusion?

Yaffe writes, “Professor Mehrabian’s conclusion was that for inconsistent or contradictory communications, body language and tonality may be more accurate indicators of meaning and emotions than the words themselves. However, he never intended the results to apply to normal conversation. And certainly not to speeches, which should never be inconsistent or contradictory!”

I am told Jonathan Edwards read his sermons with little emotion, addressing the back wall, yet his “The Excellency of Christ” is marvelous reading and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” had people withering in the pews. Should we attribute this to the Holy Spirit’s use of the words? Sure, but how much human spirit is any of our words? Probably far more than 7 percent.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Black River,’ by Joss Stirling

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Oxford. The Thames Valley Police. Names that evoke, in mystery fans, the unforgettable characters of Morse and Lewis, and the televised “Endeavour” prequels. But this is not one of those stories.

Black River, by Joss Stirling, is a different sort of mystery altogether, in the same setting. It’s billed as the first book in a series, although the story harkens back to previous events in the main character’s life, as if the reader already knew about them. Perhaps it’s a spin-off of another series.

Our heroine and central character is Jess Bridges, a short, pretty, curvaceous young woman who has ADHD, which makes her both impulsive and (apparently) ditzy. She has recently set up as a private investigator, specializing in missing persons. Currently she’s trying to contact a teenaged girl who has moved out on her mother and in with her recently divorced stepfather.

But that inquiry gets interrupted when, inspired by a bestselling book on “wild swimming” in England, she goes skinny-dipping at one of the author’s recommended spots, only to discover the body of a murdered man in a boat. This results in her meeting Jago Jackson, the author of the book himself, who happened to be cycling in the area, and Inspector Leo George, who heads up the murder investigation. The three of them (and several others) will meet again and again, as Jess goes undercover, taking a job with a movie crew filming at an Oxford college, and the two cases start overlapping. At least in terms of location.

The plot was complex – which really isn’t a negative criticism for a mystery. It was a pretty easy read, and the writing was good. There was a touch of French farce about the whole thing, as Jess tends to land in repeated, embarrassing sexual situations. My stuffy puritanism found that a little excessive.

However, I also noted that the author made an effort to avoid foul language. I didn’t love this book, but you very well might like it better.

Religion

‘Intolerance’

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Still from D. W. Griffith’s “Intolerance,” (1916)

I posted this on Visage Volume yesterday, and though I garnered some quibbles, I still think it holds up.

The issue of Christianity’s “intolerance” has come up. I often hear the contention that the “old gods” were tolerant, while Christianity introduced intolerance. This is based on an uninformed assumption that the old days were just like ours. In fact, the “old gods” were not tolerant, and certainly not universal. They were parochial. They cared about their own people (when it suited them), and no others. Zeus cared nothing for the Parthians. Thor couldn’t care less about the Irish. Christianity brought in a new idea (anticipated by the Jewish prophets) that one God had created all, loved all, and redeemed all. If that’s true, then His message is applicable to all. The moment you make the statement, “God loves everyone,” or “everyone matters,” you are appropriating Christian theology.