You probably don’t know about this because I’ve been so discreet on the subject, but I did a whole lot of translation on the Norwegian miniseries, Atlantic Crossing (teaser above). It’s also possible I may have mentioned that it will be broadcast for the US on PBS Masterpiece this spring.
I promised to let you know when we learned the actual broadcast date. The premiere date has been revealed at last — Sunday, April 4, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, 8:00 Central (all the rest of you are expected to do math). The official announcement is here.
Today was an eventful one by the standards of my life. I had my annual appointment with the tax preparer. It’s a new preparer this year. My old preparer died. A couple days ago. She wasn’t a robust person, but still, a shocker. (Not Covid)
I also had to do some actual physical work. It snowed overnight, and my neighbor who usually takes care of snowblowing, couldn’t, because the his snowblower broke down. And, oh yes, he has a concussion.
I am surrounded by devastation.
I was able to tell the ladies at the tax place about Atlantic Crossing, though. I doubt it makes up for a death on staff, but it was the best I could do. Aside from paying their exorbitant fee.
I don’t like February much. Maybe April will be better.
As I never tire of telling you, I’m not a huge fan of Scandinavian Noir as a literary genre. My samplings indicate that most such books ought to be classed as depressants and dispensed only with a doctor’s prescription. However, I make an exception for Jørn Lier Horst’s William Wisting novels. (I first discovered Wisting, as I also never tire of telling you, while helping to translate the Wisting TV series, now available on the Sundance Channel).
It’s been a while since a new Wisting book has been released in English, though. But I was happy to discover that author Horst has teamed up with another Norwegian mystery author, Thomas Enger, to produce a new police series, about an Oslo detective named Alexander Blix. The first book in the series is Death Deserved.
Alexander Blix is a top-notch detective, but somewhat the worse for wear. Years ago he was involved in a shooting that’s still studied at the police academy. He was exonerated, but his career has always been under a shadow. His former partner (and former friend) is now his boss.
When a legendary female long-distance runner disappears from her home, almost the only clue left behind is a race number (1) taped to the TV. Since the woman had recently published a memoir entitled, Always Number One, that number seems to have something to do with the criminal’s motives.
Over the next few days famous people start disappearing or being murdered all around the city, each of them associated with a particular number. It looks like somebody is doing a macabre countdown.
The first person on the original crime scene was a young celebrity reporter, Emma Ramm. Suddenly she’s covering her very first hard news story – and Blix can’t resist helping her out a little. He has a secret reason for this, which the reader will learn in time.
Meanwhile, Blix is dealing with having a celebrity in his own family. His daughter, of whom he has seen little since her mother left him, is currently a contestant on a big Norwegian reality show along the lines of Big Brother. And gradually he begins to suspect that the celebrity-hunting murderer may have his eye on whoever wins that show.
I liked Death Deserved, though not as much as the Wisting books. It suffered (in my opinion) from the natural defects of the criminal mastermind story – this sort of thing never happens in the real world, and gets pretty implausible as the plot works itself out.
But the final showdown was exciting and well crafted, with a certain emotional resonance that pleased me.
There’s one excursion into the world of big evangelicalism – a sequence involving a venal celebrity pastor. Not surprisingly, they don’t get the jargon right – but the man’s a plain grifter, so I suppose it doesn’t matter much. I was pleased that the translator, Anne Bruce, translated “prest” as “pastor” rather than “priest,” which is my preferred interpretation. In fact, the translation as a whole earned my coveted admiration.
I also note, with appreciation, that the translator got a thank you in the Acknowledgements (which are otherwise too long and too cute).
A very recent addition to the Netflix film lineup is the fact-based film, The Dig, about the excavation of the Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon ship burial beginning in 1939. This was, needless to say, of considerable interest to me. And it’s a pretty fair movie.
Ralph Fiennes plays Basil Brown, a self-taught archaeological excavator who is hired by the widowed Mrs. Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) to do a dig of a grave mound on her property. The nearby Ipswich Museum tries to lure Brown away to excavate some Roman ruins, but he stays on the Sutton Hoo dig, convinced that it might be Anglo-Saxon rather than Viking, a significant rarity. When Brown uncovers the distinct traces of a ship burial, the site suddenly becomes an archaeological sensation. Noted British Museum archaeologist Charles Phillips (Ken Stott) stomps in to take control, causing Brown to withdraw in offense for a time. He is drawn back, however, by Edith’s young son Robert (Archie Barnes), who sees him as a father figure. Soon progress on the dig turns into a race against time, as war approaches and all non-essential public works will have to be shut down.
The film is beautifully filmed and emotionally touching. The sense of impending death hangs over all, the idea of robbing a grave offering counterpoint to portents of the bloodbath that’s approaching for the whole country. Edith herself suffers from heart disease, and knows she hasn’t long to live (she’s portrayed as a woman in her 30s in the film, though the real Edith Pretty was in her 50s. Nicole Kidman was originally slated for the role).
Contemporary glosses are obligatory of course, especially in the case of female archaeologist Peggy Piggott (Lily James), who is portrayed, with an eye to the feminists, as a sort of insecure nerd-babe in a loveless marriage, hired solely because she’s light in weight and less likely to crush artifacts. In fact (according to Wikipedia), she was an experienced and accomplished team member. A fictional adulterous romance is invented for her (with Edith’s fictional brother Rory, played by Johnny Flynn).
The ending is slightly anticlimactic, and melancholy. It saddened me that, even in a portrayal of a more Christian England, no reference is made to Christian hope in the many conversations about death and the afterlife. The lesson of the film seems to be that we’re all part of a great chain of lives stretching back into infinity, and forward, who knows how far? No doubt that’s comforting to some people.
Good movie, and sometimes educational, though I wish they’d told us more about the Anglo-Saxons, their culture, and the artifacts. Still, recommended.
“That’s the point of dating,” she said. “To, like, get to know someone.”
“The guy’s a communications major—ironic given his lack of verbal acuity—and he barely maintains a two-point oh. Been on academic probation twice. And he had a jaywalking ticket—”
“Uh, you just butchered six dudes in an impound lot.”
“Context is everything.”
Imagine you finished reading a James Bond novel, and felt you’d been made a wiser and better person.
That’s the effect (at least for this reader) of reading Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X series of thrillers. It’s a pretty neat trick, one any author ought to admire.
As you may recall, our hero, Evan Smoak, has lived three lives so far. First he was an orphan in a group home, abandoned and hopeless. Then he was recruited into the government’s super-top-secret Orphan program, becoming a deadly covert assassin. Then, after extricating himself from that life, he became The Nowhere Man, living in a luxury condo in LA, answering calls for help from the desperate, saving them if he can. But as Prodigal Son begins, he’s transitioned to yet another new life. Pardoned through a special deal with no less a personage than the president of the United States, he has given up his vigilante career, and he finds himself untethered in the cosmos. He is a physically fit minimalist with OCD. His human contacts are few. There’s Joey, a 16-year-old girl he rescued from the Orphan project, who does computer hacking for him and has become a sort of surrogate daughter. There’s his neighbor Mia, the single mother of a boy who desperately wants a father figure. There’s real chemistry with Mia, but she works for the DA’s office, and has figured out she doesn’t want to know too much about his life.
Then Evan gets a call over his secure phone, from a woman who claims to be his mother. He refuses to believe it at first, but finally he goes to meet her in Buenos Aires. She wants him to save the life of a man named Andrew Duran, a man who owes money to loan sharks and is working at a city impound lot, trying to make his child support payments. Evan can’t figure out why she cares about this guy, but it’s something he can do for his mother. Of course, that means breaking his deal with the president. And it will put him in the sights of a lethal brother-sister assassin team and the richest man in the world, who has lots of high-tech military-industrial-complex toys.
The stakes keep rising, the twists and turns and setbacks escalate to impossible levels. And yet, the really compelling thing about Prodigal Son is Evan’s personal journey. Meeting his mother after all these years sets him to contemplating what it means to be human, realizing that he has to find some way to connect with humanity. And step by step, he starts doing just that. It’s touching and inspiring – and sometimes funny.
Loved this book, in spite of the slightly preposterous plot (standard in the series) and the cliff-hanger ending (to be fair, all the plot threads had been tied up, so this was more of a cliff appendix). Highly recommended. Cautions for language and violence.
I suppose I should update you on the food gifts we got for Christmas. I mean, that’s what friends do, right?
My sister-in-law sent us a remarkable ready-to-eat package of salmon, pork, beef, and reindeer from Alaska Sausage and Seafood. Jerky sticks, sausage, and smoked salmon made a few good lunches. We opened the salmon for New Year’s Eve while watching the BBC’s 1995 Pride and Prejudice. Not pretentious food, but it’s not a pretentious show either.
I may not know how to eat meat sticks. Are they just an add-on? It’s not like you can wrap a bun around one or two and call it a sandwich. No one ever calls a hotdog a sandwich but I suppose it is. Speaking of which, this tweet:
Going to start selling "writer's kits" over the Internet. Based on my current work habits, they'd consist of a small glass of Scotch, a few cubes of cheddar cheese and an Oasis mix CD (and a Twitter login?). #amwriting#milliondollaridea
Going to start selling “writer’s kits” over the Internet. Based on my current work habits, they’d consist of a small glass of Scotch, a few cubes of cheddar cheese and an Oasis mix CD (and a Twitter login?).
To which, writer Tony Woodlief replied, “Read this as ‘writer’s kilts’ and instinctively reached for my credit card.”
I also received Ghirardelli dark chocolate mint squares and a box of Andies. This has settled me on the only snacking chocolate I care to have year round. Keep your M-Ms, your Reese’s, your Cadbury eggs. I love Andies and these Ghirardelli’s are superb. I could make room for Peppermint Patties.
I gave the family a big bundle of tea from Tea For All Reasons, a company owned by an friend who took it over from her mother. I bought the Doctor Who sampler and the Jane Austen sampler. Some are delicately blended teas, others boldly satisfying. Starry Night in the Doctor Who set is honestly beautiful. It smells wonderful and looks like its name due to the cornflowers and blueberry. If you love tea and want to break away from the typical blends you find in most stores, look through the many options on this site.
I’ve got a little translating work today, which puts me behind in my reading. So instead of a book review, here’s an analysis of another kind of storytelling — a video on Buster Keaton’s comedy film techniques. I’m a huge fan of Keaton. In my world, Charlie Chaplin is nowhere.
After workmen discover a pair of mummified human fingers (female) while remodeling a country hotel, the local police begin a search for some missing person who could possibly belong to them. Meanwhile various prostitutes are disappearing, possible victims of a serial killer.
The timing could have been better for Detective Mike Nash. One of his best team members has just left on vacation (or holiday, as they say over there), and he himself is having trouble handling the absence from his life of the woman he’s fallen in love with. But he’ll need to bring his best game to handle what’s going to be the most horrific case he’s seen in his whole career.
The book is Chain Reaction, by Bill Kitson. I found that I’d already read one of the books in this series. At the time it didn’t impress me enough to continue with the next, but I found Chain Reaction quite enjoyable, after a string of disappointing reads lately. Mike Nash is a relatable cop, and the story was well told, with a nice twist at the end. Too many woman cops in the cast, as is the custom these days, but the book was good.
Recommended. The main cautions are for disturbing themes.
No review tonight. Instead, a little writing update. I’m sort of at a milestone, having sort of finished the first draft of the next Erling novel, whose name – I think – will be King of Rogaland. I didn’t really want to call it that, having used the word “king” in my last title, but it seems to be what the book wants to be called.
I say the first draft is “sort of” finished because I’ve already identified a major revision I need to make, which will involve ripping up a fair amount of the work I’ve done.
Which is, I keep telling people, precisely the way it’s supposed to be. The first piece of advice I give to young writers is, “Don’t worry about making the first draft perfect. Your first draft is supposed to suck. That’s its function. The first draft is raw material – unshaped clay, unchiseled stone. It’s what you make a real story out of.”
What amazes me is that I don’t follow my own advice. I sit here thinking what a failure the book is, because the first draft is flawed.
It’s like I don’t even listen to myself. Considering all the time and money I’ve spent maintaining this font of wisdom in my life, I don’t even use it.
No wonder I never made the bestseller lists.
Now, to take your mind off my miseries, here’s a short film – about a half hour. It’s an adaptation of a Terry Pratchett story (or at least based on his characters; I’ve never read Pratchett). But it impressed me in many ways.
Jack Mallory is a police detective in (as far as I could tell) an unnamed American city. In William Coleman’s Murder Revisited, first in the series, he is called off the investigation of a murdered young woman when the chief of police (whom he hates, and it’s mutual) orders him to investigate a cold case. 20 years ago, Timothy Waters was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, whose father is now governor of the state. Recently he was released from prison, because all the evidence against him disappeared. Jack is ordered, literally, to find evidence that will send Timothy back to prison, and to look no further. Jack has no intention of railroading anybody, and goes to work doing a real investigation.
Meanwhile, Jack is approached by the cop assigned to assist the detective investigating the first murder – that detective is notoriously lazy and sloppy at his work, and the cop is concerned another miscarriage of justice is coming. So Jack agrees to look into that one too.
Those are just two of the multitudinous plot threads that entwine to make up this unusually complicated story. There were too many coincidences in it for this reader’s taste. Also, author Coleman attempted to make his characters human and complex, but only succeeded (in my perception) in making them one-dimensional in complicated and sometimes contradictory ways.
The chapters were very short, the writing undistinguished. I didn’t care for this book. Maybe smarter people will find it easier to follow along.
(Confusion aid: This is not about the recent movie by the same title.) “Wild Mountain Thyme” is a modern Irish song that’s so popular in Scotland most people think it’s a Scottish song. It’s song about plucking flowers from the blooming heather. That’s pretty Scottish, even in Iowa. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I fear for your education. I mean, it’s not like this is a Finnish song.
According to Irish Music Daily, “Wild Mountain Thyme” or “Will You Go, Lassie, Go” was written by William McPeake of Belfast’s McPeake family, who have apparently sustained traditional folk music for the whole of the last century. This song came about in the 50s. It’s been as successful as wild moun–nevermind.
The song seems inspired by an older piece written in thicker brogue, which starts like this:
Let us go, lassie, go Tae the braes o’ Balquhidder Whar the blueberries grow ‘Mang the bonnie Hielan’ heather
It’s something of the same song to judge by words alone. Hear the difference here. This older piece is a love song with a lot of flower picking in it, but the new song has an odd twist in the third verse.
To back up, the singer asks his lass to pick wildflowers with him, and that’s the idea of the chorus. In the second verse, he says he will build a bower by a crystal fountain for his true love and pile all the wildflowers he can find on this bower. Then he says, “If my true love she were gone/I would surely find another” among the many wildflower pickers.
Is this short shrift for the one women he loved minutes ago? That would give us an image of love being like a quickly withering wildflower or the lovers being like bees flying from one attraction to another. But because lovers in Irish songs so often die or are separated in some way, I wonder if the third verse gives us the picture of the singer standing beside his true love’s grave, asking, “Will you go pick wildflowers with us again? If you can’t, I can find someone else. I mean, everyone picks flowers on the hillside. But will you go? With me?”
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