The title means something like “Time Runs On (like a river).” It’s a beloved hymn of the Faeroe Islands, sung here by the world’s greatest singer, Norway’s Sissel Kyrkjebo. She’s singing in Faeroese, which I understand only a little better than you do. It’s an ancient dialect of Old Norse, and the Faeroese claim that it’s closer to what the Vikings actually spoke than modern Icelandic is. But the gist of the thing is that time runs on like a river, and I am in a little boat. Who will bring me safely home? Only Jesus can do that.
Appropriate thoughts for my birthday. I had a nice day. Went out to lunch with a friend, and reveled in the pleasure of having paying work, and the promise of more to come. Thank you for your friendship here.
This has been a tough year on everyone, but not equally tough. When we first got fitted with a tailored lockdown, several people were saying, “Looking for ideas on how to pass all this extra time you’ll have? Here’s a list of books, studies, and movies.” Nice thoughts, but the people in my party were wondering where they could get some of this extra time.
Our days had only gotten more intense. Our work had been growing more earnest, maybe more hectic, since February, I think. Everyone began working from home March 20, and until early May everyday felt like a crossway. Would we continue this direction or turn?
Even after the intensity lessened, I worried we couldn’t take a vacation, because taking time off could be a problem, and if we did, would the right things be open? But I got approval for time off, and the kids were also feeling the stress of their work and school responsibilities, so we rented a cabin on the edge of Helen in the Northeast Georgia mountains.
The picture above is from the city park, facing one of the main shopping areas and the town clock tower, I think. (I heard a clock chiming the hour several times but never identified the source.) The town took on a Bavarian style in 1969 and has leaned into it as much as it can with European food stores, German restaurants (I had a brat with kraut for lunch), and a few nice stores, like Lindenhaus and Wildewood, mixed among the regular tourist fair. It will celebrate its 50th Oktoberfest in a couple months (in a subdued fashion). The town has a bit of a beer-drinking feel, but we found enough to hold our interest, such as the Hansel and Gretel Candy Kitchen. I finished my chocolate and caramel-coated pear tonight.
We didn’t entirely avoid crowds. On Tuesday we went to Alpine Mini Golf and Ice Cream Parlor, where there were 17 groups on 18 holes. I’m glad the whole day wasn’t that crowded; people tended to emerge as the day burned. On Monday we floated down the Chattahoochee River and enjoyed it so much we returned the next day. I must have thought I was an experienced seaman the second time down, because I fell in the river three times trying to negotiate the rapids. Didn’t lose my glasses though.
We avoided the crowd our first day by visiting the marvelous Hardman Farm historic site. They open at 10:00; we took the 10:00 tour and had the run of the place. We also visited a couple art centers and the nearby folk pottery museum before heading home. I hope the year will go much smoother now that we’ve laid back for a bit.
Continuing H. Terrell Griffin’s Matt Royal mystery series, we come to number three, Blood Island. This one was a bit of a disappointment, in this reader’s view.
Matt Royal, you may recall, is a retired lawyer living on Longboat Key, near Sarasota, Florida. He is also a former Green Beret who keeps his skills up – which is handy because people keep trying to kill him for one reason or another.
In Blood Island, Matt gets a call from his ex-wife Laura. She left him with good reason years ago, when he went through a self-destructive period that might have pulled them both down. She’s remarried, but they still care for each other. She has a stepdaughter named Peggy, who has disappeared unaccountably. Matt is happy to help her out, and starts hunting for her, assisted by his friend Logan Hamilton.
It all leads to a big terrorist plot, originating with a delusional Christian evangelist who runs a string of brothels (!). I was disappointed with that plot element, though it was made clear that this guy was crazy and not representative of evangelicals generally.
My other main problem with Blood Island was plausibility. Author Griffin works hard to keep stuff moving fast, but it didn’t move fast enough this time out to overcome my skepticism. If a civilian tips a bunch of law enforcement agencies off to a terrorist plot, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t all agree to put the civilian in charge of their operation, even if he’s a former Green Beret with a superspy buddy.
There’s a tragic subplot which worked fairly well, but not well enough to sell the overall plot to me.
However, I’m not disillusioned with the series yet. I’ll give it another chance.
I’ve told you of my woes enough in this space; I owe it to you to report my good days. I had a good day on Monday, and I’ve been upbeat all week. Which is an excellent thing when you’re my age and approaching a birthday.
I told you a while back that I was out of the script translation business. Well, I’m happy to say that I’m back in it. My outlawry has expired. I shall be cagier in the future about telling you what I’m working on, but working I am. Or will be, when the next job shows up. I am, as Bertie Wooster would say, “chuffed.”
While I wait for script work, I’m working on promotional material for my friends at Saga Bok publishers in Norway. I’ve told you that they’ve been translating the massive Flatøy Book of Icelandic sagas into modern Norwegian, the first time in history that’s been done. That project is complete now – six big, leather-bound volumes, copiously illustrated by the artist Anders Kvåle Rue, all on the market and selling well in Norway. Did I mention their next project is an English translation?
Before you ask, no, I’m not doing that translation. That’s being done the right way – by an Icelandic scholar from the original language. But they’ve asked me to translate some promotional material. So that’s what I’m working on at the moment. A fun project. I hope there’s more. You can read about the English project here, though the interview comes from 2016. Now it’s underway. If you’re interested in the project, and have money to donate, I can put you in touch. Just saying.
If the criminals hadn’t been stupid enough to try to kill Matt Royal, they’d have been home clear. Retired Florida lawyer Matt recently discovered three men near a beached boat while out jogging. Two of them were dead, the other just hanging on. Matt called the police and got help for the survivor. That’s how Murder Key begins.
Shortly after, Matt and his friend Logan are minding their own business in a bar when somebody tries to kill Matt. Logan saves his life. Then somebody tries to kill Logan. Matt has no idea what’s going on.
It’s time for him to call in the big guns – his childhood buddy Jock, who happens to be an agent for an unnamed, super-secret government agency. Before long Matt and Jock are headed to Mexico to learn about the illegal immigrant pipeline, and then investigating a slave labor camp back home in Florida.
Lots of action, interesting characters, a good story. This is entertainment worth the entrance fee, and (unlike the last book) I didn’t figure out the big surprise ahead of time.
If your taste runs to Florida beach bum private eyes in the tradition of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee, there seem to be plenty to choose from. I suppose it’s the lingering McGee mystique that inspires them, and I’m not complaining. H. Terrell Griffin’s Matt Royal seems to be another example, and I liked him just fine.
Matt Royal, the hero of Longboat Blues, is a former lawyer. He used to fly high, working around the clock, making the big bucks, loving the game. But his obsession finally destroyed his marriage, and then he went into a tailspin. His ex-wife’s intervention and one last high-paying case turned him around. He retired with enough money to live in his adopted home of Longboat Key, Florida (near Sarasota), fishing and loafing and enjoying a low-stress life in paradise.
Until one day a woman in his social circle is strangled to death, and her body is found on the condominium balcony belonging to his friend, Logan Hamilton. Desperate and without resources, Logan asks Matt to defend him. Matt can’t say no. But Logan has been framed so neatly that it will involve a lot of investigating to identify the real killer, who is well protected.
I liked Matt Royal as a hero right from the start. He’s thoughtful and easygoing, and (if I understood certain hints in the text) essentially conservative. There was plenty of action in the book, and the mystery was engaging (though I figured out the real villain fairly early – the author needs to work on camouflaging his clues). I have read the second book already and am working on the third. Good stuff. I didn’t notice any offensive language; there were some typos, though.
Still up to my ears in translation, so I’ll reach back all the way to earlier this week, and review a movie I watched on Amazon Prime. One of the oldies again. This one was of particular interest, because it was based on a book I’ve reviewed here, Come and Get It by Edna Ferber. And I have family connections to the setting.
As you may recall if you have photographic memory and nothing better to think about, Come and Get It is Edna Ferber’s novel about the lumber industry in late 19th and early 20th Century northern Wisconsin. The hero is Barney Glasgow, a man with a dream of being rich which he fulfills, but at cost to himself and others.
In the film, the great character actor Edward Arnold plays Barney , which is a case of miscasting. Barney in the book was a big man, but not fat, at least at the start. Still, he gets the character right – a classic American go-getter, an obsessive A-Type before those labels were invented. When I watched a couple clips from the film on YouTube while reading the book, it appeared to me the movie took a lot of liberties. But watching the film, it seemed to me pretty faithful to heart of the story.
The book starts with Barney going to work in a lumber camp as a boy. The movie prunes the story at both ends, jumping forward at the beginning to the moment when Barney comes to visit his friend Swan Bostrom (Walter Brennan, whose Swedish accent might have been worse, I guess) in Iron Ridge, Wisconsin (standing in for Hurley, Wisconsin where my great-grandmother was born). He’s been working out in the camps as a foreman, but now he’s got a big idea to sell to the boss. If the boss goes along with it, Barney will be a partner.
In a saloon, they meet Lotta Morgan, a saloon singer (played by Frances Farmer in her first major movie role). Lotta falls for Barney, thinking he’s her ticket out of the gutter. However, Barney decides to marry the boss’s daughter, a condition of the big business deal. An embittered Lotta marries Swan instead.
Skip forward a couple decades, and Barney is now sole owner of the company, father to two adult children (Joel McCrae plays his son). He hasn’t learned much with the years; he runs roughshod over his family’s feelings, and feels no responsibility to the land he despoils with his logging. Then he’s persuaded to go back to Iron Ridge to visit Swan. He finds Swan now widowed, but he has a daughter (she was a granddaughter in the book), also named Lotta, who looks just like her mother (Farmer played both roles). Now it’s Barney’s turn to play the fool in love – he hires Lotta and brings her to Chicago with him, hoping he can possess her. But his next rival will be his own son.
I enjoyed watching Come and Get It more than I expected. Critical judgment hasn’t been enthusiastic, but I found it enjoyable and relatable. The ending seemed abrupt and anticlimactic, though, as if the writers couldn’t figure out how to wrap it up.
My grandfather worked in one of those camps as a boy. He started out young – he was tall and could get away with lying about his age. I don’t think he was actually a lumberjack proper; his stories were mostly about moving logs around, in wagons or on trains. He once told me a story about a guy driving a wagonload of timber that I thought was the funniest thing I ever heard. Only I can’t remember it at all after all these years.
I do remember his story about transporting logs on a flatcar. They piled them up high, and a couple guys had to ride on top to keep an eye on the merchandise. One day, he told me, he had to do something else and asked a friend to trade off on that day’s run. That was the day the logs started rolling off, and the guys riding on the flatcar, including his friend, were killed.
I know I just shared some music with you, but it occurred to me today that summertime is for happy music. This year has been tough, so I’ll see if I can find some good barbershop quartets to post for the next several Fridays. Here are two.
An anecdote about a telegram from exile leads to this observation from Luke Harrington:
That story is almost definitely apocryphal (not that that stopped the Guinness Book of Records from once including it as the record for “shortest correspondence,” because, well, Guinness gonna Guinness), but it illustrates something we too often forget about the authors of “classic” books: Most of them weren’t tormented geniuses languishing in obscurity to create “great art”; they were just normal people working hard and trying to make bank. Sure, in the pantheon of literature, you’ll find a few weirdo recluses like Kafka, but for the most part, classic authors were the Michael Bays (Michaels Bay?) of their time, obsessively watching the proverbial box office numbers and high-fiving themselves when they topped a billion or whatever.
