To continue our recent trend of sharing forgotten hymns, today’s hymn was written by the great John Newton, “A Welcome to Christian Friends.” It talks of our unity and comfort in Christ. The recording of Bach’s “O Jesus sweet, O Jesus mild” is a potential tune for it. You’ll have to make the adaptation as you listen.
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” (Eph. 1:13-14 ESV)
1 Kindred in Christ, for his dear sake, A hearty welcome here receive; May we together now Partake The Joys which only he can give!
2 To you and us by Grace ’tis giv’n, To know the Saviour’s precious name; And shortly we shall meet in Heav’n, Our Hope, our Way, our End, the same.
3 May he, by whose kind Care we meet, Send his good Spirit from above, Make our Communications sweet, And cause our hearts to burn with Love!
4 Forgotten be each worldly Theme, When Christians see each other thus; We only wish to speak of him, Who liv’d and dy’d and rose for us.
5 We’ll talk of all he did and said, And suffer’d for us here below; The Path he mark’d for us to tread, And what he’s doing for us now.
6 Thus, as the Moments pass away, We’ll love, and Wonder and adore. Lord, hasten on the glorious Day When we shall meet to part no more!
As you’ve probably noticed, on those increasingly frequent evenings when my skull contains only a couple thoughts rattling around, none of them usable here, I resort to posting music. Often it’s Scandinavian music. I’d like to pretend I do this because I grew up with it, but in fact I heard very few of these songs in my childhood, except the hymns. I learned them as an adult.
“Hils Fra Meg Derhjemme” is regarded as the Scandinavian-American anthem. I had the idea it was originally a Swedish song, but this article says it was first performed in Denmark. Nonetheless, all the Scandinavian immigrants adopted it. It’s a song of homesickness, and quite heartbreakingly beautiful.
There are a number of versions available on YouTube, but only a couple live performances. And most of those are either instrumentals or an odd, C&W adaptation. So I’ll have to settle for a performance performed in 2014 by Lynn Peterson and Garrison Keillor, on Prairie Home Companion. I’m no longer a fan of Keillor’s, and am loath to feature him here, but needs must.
As you can read in the article linked above, the song tells of a sailor at sea, standing watch at night. He sees birds flying north, and fancies they’re headed for his homeland. He asks them to take his greetings back to his family, to the green mountainsides and bright fjords (Swedish and Danish versions vary those details a little).
I don’t believe this song is well known in Norway. The last time I was there, I had an evening with the cousins at Avaldsnes, and Cousin Edna brought out her guitar. She asked people to share their favorite songs, and I suggested “Hils Fra Meg Derhjemme.” Nobody had ever heard of it.
I’m reading (again) Charles Williams’ final novel, All Hallows Eve. I’m not quite half way through it. Williams is not the easiest read, but I keep coming back to his books. Just a few thoughts tonight about my ongoing impressions.
A recurring theme in Williams’ novels is the city – properly spelled with a capital “C” when he deals with it. J. R. R. Tolkien was always a little leery of Williams, and I’d imagine attitudes towards cities had something to do with it. Tolkien was a countryman, reveling in woods and meadows, trees and flowers and butterflies. Williams was London-born, and felt best at home there, amid the noise, the crowds, the bustle.
I’ve never (yet) read St. Augustine’s City of God, but I understand it to be a meditation on the societal catastrophe of the fall of Rome. Augustine told Christians that they mustn’t identify the City of God with any city of man, however great its pretensions. Christianity could do without Rome – we look to the City with foundations, eternal in the Heavens.
Nevertheless, Williams saw something of eternity in London, and in any great metropolis. A city has a being of its own; a body, a pulse, and a spirit. Many members work together to support a common life. The man of God can find an image of Heaven in the city, if he looks for it. London is itself an active character in All Hallows’ Eve.
Another thing that always strikes me – bothers me, really – in this book is that the villain is a Jew, and his Jewishness is an important element. There is no hint here of Jewish inferiority – rather the opposite. The villain here, Father Simon, is, we are made to understand, the Antichrist. And as the true Antichrist, he has to correspond to Jesus Christ, but in an inverted way. The Jewish capacities that in part made Jesus Messiah are aped and parodied in Father Simon.
This is my personal opinion – we need to be careful, when reading, to understand that people didn’t view antisemitism the same way back then (Williams died in 1945, as the war was ending, but before most people knew the true extent of Hitler’s Holocaust). The old antisemitism was bad enough, but Hitler improvised a new kind. The persecutors of Jews before that time – Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox – had never considered annihilating the Jews. They wanted to convert them. Hitler cared nothing for the Jews’ souls. He was all about “pure” blood, and regarded the Jews as an infection to be removed.
I don’t think we can ever treat Jews the same way in literature again. And that’s a good thing.
Tonight, an old song. Which probably means nothing to you, but it means something to me, and there’s a story or two in there, and stories are good things.
If there was an artistic side to my family, it was my paternal grandmother’s. Her father was a skilled artisan, with (I’m told) beautiful handwriting. Grandma sang and played the piano and guitar – I don’t think she was anything like a virtuoso, but she could sight-read, something I never achieved.
Sometimes she’d sit at the piano and play for her own amusement, and her favorite song seemed to be “Nelly Gray” (video above), a very popular pre-Civil War anti-slavery ballad. I have no idea where she learned it. Maybe her piano teacher made her memorize it. Maybe it was popular in her family – her own parents came to America in the 1880s, long after abolition had been accomplished, but she had cousins who came in the 1840s.
“Nelly Gray” was written by a United Brethren minister and songwriter named Benjamin Hanby (who also wrote the Christmas songs “Up on the Housetop” and “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas”).
Like all the United Brethren, Hanby was a strong abolitionist. His family had given shelter to an escaped slave named Joseph Selby, who had left his sweetheart behind in Kentucky. The family was trying to raise money to buy her freedom when Selby died of pneumonia. Deeply moved, Benjamin Hanby created the song “Nelly Gray” (published 1856) about a slave in Kentucky whose sweetheart has been “sold down the river” to Georgia (generally considered a crueler place for bondsmen than Kentucky). He laments her loss, and at the end of the song he is dying, looking forward to their reunion in Heaven.
Realization was a long time in coming, and when it came in all its intensity, I knew that the world seldom saw as great a fool as I. She had magic, integrity, passion and a rare loveliness. And I had gone at her the way you go at one of those coin machines where you try to pick up the prize with a toy crane. I could have had the whole machine, with all the prizes and all the candy. But I had settled for gilt and glass.
Hugh MacReedy, hero-narrator of John D. MacDonald’s Death Trap, has never gotten over the mistake he made two years ago, when he was working as an engineer on a highway project near the town of Dalton (no state given). He had met the lovely Victoria Landry, and dated her. He then treated her as a score on a card and cast her off, hurting her deeply. Now he knows he blew the best thing that ever happened to him. But he also knows he’ll never get another chance with her. Until, back in Chicago from a job in Spain, he happens to pick up a newspaper and read that Vicky’s brother Alister, an awkward and arrogant genius, is scheduled to be executed for murder in a few days.
On impulse, Hugh cancels a vacation he’d planned and drives to Dalton instead. He finds Vicky, a shadow of her old self, devastated by her brother’s tragedy. At first she refuses Hugh’s help, still hurting from his rejection, but at last she offers him a deal. If her brother is executed, she says, she knows she’ll never be able to be any man’s wife. But if Hugh can find evidence to prove him innocent, she’ll give him another chance.
Hugh is strong and healthy, bright enough, and not shy. He can afford to spend money on an investigation. He’s in.
I call that a pretty good set-up for a mystery thriller. Death Trap was written in 1957, when author MacDonald was hitting his stride as a novelist, and Death Trap, it seems to me, is right up there with the very best. The town of Dalton is realistically portrayed, a town that’s experienced tragedy and corporately settled on a unanimous narrative, in which the truth is secondary. The girl Alister is supposed to have killed is remembered as a sweet, lovely child. In fact she was prematurely promiscuous, openly defiant of authority, and casually manipulative. Anyone questioning the accepted narrative, though, has to expect pushback – and Hugh gets it in spades, though he gives as good as he gets.
The book involves several vicious fights, but – interestingly – it’s psychology and a smart trap that nail the real murderer down in the end. Few things in literature age as poorly as old psychology – and the analysis does creak a little here – but all in all it works.
Death Trap is a top-notch, old-school pulp action mystery with added class. Recommended, with cautions, as you’d expect, for violence and non-explicit sexual situations.
This book was promoted on Instapundit. I suppose it must have qualified because of certain libertarian elements in the story. Personally, although I finished Jay Maynard’s Foundational Laminate, I’m a little ashamed of myself for doing so.
We begin with Alex Sullivan, a young man who’s been arrested and convicted of punching out a cop during a street demonstration. He got a pretty good deal – a couple weeks of jail time, plus probation – on the condition that he undergo therapy at the Laminatrix Mental hospital in rural Missouri. This hospital’s novel approach is to encase the patient (as well as the therapist) in a latex suit, which is then encased in a crystal sphere. The two, each in their suit and sphere, then engage in intense conversation over a period of weeks – through telepathy – as the patient is helped to re-process their old traumas, gaining perspective and clarity.
How is this possible? Through magic. The hospital is run by a sorceress whose legal name is “The Laminatrix.” She invented the latex suits, which fully support all physical needs and remove waste. Full-time employees at the hospital are permanently sealed in their suits, voluntarily becoming fully committed, lifetime caregivers.
The story then continues, telling how Alex himself decides to become a caregiver, surrendering his face (all suit-wearers are masked) and his name (he becomes Red 24, after the color his suit and his hiring sequence). We follow as he eventually encounters a patient who, unwittingly, will round out his personal story. And we also follow as the state of Missouri discovers, to its horror, that there’s an institution here they haven’t figured out a way to regulate, so they diligently try to find a way to get it on a legal leash.
First, in fairness, I should state that Foundational Laminate is pretty well written. The prose was professional, the grammar and punctuation good – something fairly rare these days. Characterization was all right – though Maynard is one of those annoying authors who avoids almost all description of characters.
What I did not like was, first of all, that we’re dealing with a false gospel here. It’s the Freudian belief that all our problems come from unconscious traumas, and that if those are solved, we’ll become fully virtuous. I believe our faults go much deeper than that, and that a man without neuroses may still be a wicked man. Therapy has its place, but we have deeper problems.
Secondly, the suits creeped me out. We’re talking about a latex suit with a masked helmet. A life without faces and names is presented here as in some way superior. I like seeing people’s faces. I like names better than numbers, too. (Call me old-fashioned.) Also, the suit-wearers cannot procreate.
What’s more, we’re told that these suits are genuinely skin-tight – so tight as to show all details of the body. More like body paint than a wet suit. The suit wearers, even as they lose their faces, shed all sense of bodily shame. Not only that, but much is made of the tubes that the suits magically insert into all the body’s orifices. This struck me as a little perverse.
In other words, Foundational Laminate reads a lot like a sex fantasy in which a latex fetishist imagines saving the world through his kink.
Today’s hymn is another one William Cowper (1731-1800) that you won’t find in your hymnal. In fact, I don’t have a tune for it. I found it in The Churchman’s Treasury of Song from 1907. It’s a portion of his larger work The Task, published in 1794. In The Churchman’s Treasury of Song, it’s given as a devotional hymn for the third week after Easter.
The Poetry Foundation described Cowper as “the foremost poet of the generation between Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth. For several decades, he had probably the largest readership of any English poet. From 1782, when his first major volume appeared, to 1837, the year in which Robert Southey completed the monumental Life and Works of Cowper, more than 100 editions of his poems were published in Britain and almost 50 in America.”
This hymn focuses on mortality and ultimate truth.
“I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of dman who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and glaid the foundations of the earth . . .” (Isaiah 51:12-13 ESV)
All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevell’d in the wind; Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream. The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him ignoble graves. Nothing is proof against the general curse Of vanity, that seizes all below. The only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth. But what is truth? ‘Twas Pilate’s question put To Truth itself, that deign’d him no reply. And wherefore? will not God impart his light To them that ask it?—Freely—’tis his joy, His glory, and his nature to impart. But to the proud, uncandid, insincere, Or negligent inquirer, not a spark. What’s that which brings contempt upon a book, And him who writes it, though the style be neat, The method clear, and argument exact? That makes a minister in holy things The joy of many and the dread of more, His name a theme for praise and for reproach?— That, while it gives us worth in God’s account, Depreciates and undoes us in our own? What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up; But which the poor, and the despised of all, Seek and obtain, and often find unsought? Tell me—and I will tell thee what is truth.
Finished reading Chapter 19 of Troll Valley today for the audiobook iteration. Chapter 19 was a bear. It took three days (one-hour sessions) to record, edit, and master the whole thing. I was a little fuzzy on the concept of chapter length back when I wrote the book, and I let that one get out the barn door and off across the pastures into the corn. I start it with Chris, our hero, in the fictional town of Tuscany, Colorado, getting a visit from his brother Fred. Then Fred takes him to the ghost town where their father has settled down for a hermit’s life, and they have quite a lengthy reunion, getting to know each other better than they ever did back home in Minnesota, and revealing some secrets. Then Fred, who’s now an outlaw, has a confrontation with a lawman, after which he must go on the run again. Then Chris says goodbye to his father, has a couple supernatural experiences that change his personality, and gets in a fight in a brothel, in which he is injured. After recovering from his wounds, he heads home to Epsom.
If I were writing it today, I’d make that at least two chapters. Possibly three. But in spite of that, I have to admit that – contrary to my expectations – I think Troll Valley isn’t a bad book at all. I was pretty young when I wrote it, and I’m sure I’m a better artist now, but it’s still a good book. There’s stuff in there I’d completely forgotten about, and it mostly works. If somebody else had written it, and I were reading it for review, I think I’d recommend it.
At one point, when the Anderson boys are gathered with their father, they sing the song posted above, a Norwegian folk song called Dalebu Jonsson. It’s about a man who kidnaps a princess, then singlehandedly fights off 7,000 warriors her father sends to rescue her. Finally the king is so impressed that he agrees to let him marry her – “You can have little Kjersti; you are worthy of her.” (Or words to that effect.)
I know the song from a recording by a male Norwegian group called “Vandrerne,” which no longer exists. They did it in a very rousing style, sort of like an Irish drinking song in spirit. When I got to the part of the text where I include the first verse, in Norwegian, my full intention was to just read the words straight. But as I was reading, I found myself sliding into music, so I ended up singing it. I translated that verse, “Oh, Dalebu’s love was a beautiful maid; he won her with steel and sharp iron blade.” (Which I think is a jolly translation; not literal, but it nails the spirit of the thing.)
The arrangement embedded above is nothing at all like the song as I know it, but I couldn’t find a better one and I thought somebody might be interested.
Catalina Island must be a nice place. Mystery writers seem to like to set stories there, and it sounds like a beautiful, laid-back community, where people tool around in golf carts and the weather is almost always nice.
Michael Connelly has created a new detective character and set him down on Catalina in his latest novel, Nightshade. “Stilwell” (no first name given) works for Los Angeles County, and used to operate in LA itself. But a beef with another detective ended with Stilwell drawing the short straw and getting exiled to the island. Only he was surprised to discover that he quite likes it there. He’s starting to feel at home, and has a new girlfriend.
Then one morning a yacht maintenance man reports what seems to be a body in a garbage bag on the harbor bottom, weighed down with an anchor. Stilwell dives down to check it personally, and finds it to be a woman – with a distinctive purple streak in her dark hair.
The woman proves to have been a server at an elite local fishing club, one who has a reputation as a gold digger. No matter – for Stilwell (as for Harry Bosch), a murder is a murder. Everybody matters, or nobody matters.
The trail will lead to the highest levels of California society, and to the lowest depths of civic corruption. It will bring him into conflict with his colleagues and superiors. Before he’s done, Stilwell will risk losing, not only his career, but the life of someone close to him.
I must admit I didn’t like Nightshade as much as I had hoped I would. Stilwell is no Harry Bosch. To me, he was kind of one-dimensional, with only three clear character traits – he is passionate about solving murders, he cares about his girlfriend, and he thinks he’s always right. This last trait seems most prominent – when Stilwell gets orders that are inconsistent with his detective instincts, he just ignores them. In the world of the story, he’s usually justified – but in the real world, there are usually reasons for the rules. And cops who make their own rules tend to go very wrong.
But the book was all right. It moved right along, and the writing was good, as you’d expect from Connelly. The usual cautions for language and mature themes apply.
In my ongoing project of audiobooking Troll Valley this morning (I’m about 80% through it now), I came on a mention of a spittoon, and it got me thinking…
But first, let me tell you about my day job. I’ve already declared that I won’t describe exactly what I’m doing (temporarily), but let me speak in general terms.
Imagine you’re a teacher. In Middle School, say. (The horror! The horror!)
And imagine you’re grading English essays. (I suppose some of you may have experienced this trauma in real life.)
And imagine (implausible as it may sound) that those essays aren’t very good. That the same mistakes are made over and over. You’re not even getting original mistakes.
And imagine the pile of essays is about ten feet high. And it never seems to diminish.
That’s what my temporary, online job is like.
Thank you. Now that’s off my chest.
So, there was a brief appearance by a spittoon in today’s chapter of Troll Valley. And that reminded me of something.
A while back, a pastor I know, who at one time served my home congregation, asked me, “Do you remember anything about spittoons in the back of Hauge Church? Somebody told me they used to have spittoons back there. The ladies let them have them, just in that section, but the men who used them had to clean them out themselves.”
And it seemed to ring a bell (no doubt a brass bell). This would be part of my very earliest memories – and with memories that old, I’ve learned that I’m highly suggestible. So I’m not at all sure here. But I have an idea I may have seen the spittoons back there, in the rear alcove of our church, next to the entryway, where my family always sat when I was little. There were warm air registers in the floor, I’m pretty sure, and I think I recall a spittoon sitting on top of one. I may have asked about it when they disappeared, too.
Or maybe not.
We Haugean Lutherans had a weird (I was tempted to say “fraught,” but I hate the way people use that word these days) relationship with tobacco in the old days. I remember discussing sin with my saintly grandmother one day, confidently asserting that drinking and smoking were both sins, but drinking was worse.
A pastor I knew years ago always used to link Haugeans to cigars. Somebody had told him that all the Haugeans back home had smoked big cigars, and that was all he knew about us, or cared to know. (I suppose it had something to do with the prosperity of some of the Haugean merchants back in Norway.)
Dad recalled how his grandfather was forced, by the two unmarried daughters who kept house for him in his old age, to always go out on the porch to smoke his pipe. (I incorporated this into Troll Valley.) Dad felt that was demeaning to the old man.
I saw a short video recently – think it was by Rory Sutherland – in which he was asked what secret, heretical views he held. And he said he thought tobacco was good for you, and will make a social comeback in time.
I’d almost welcome it. I know, there are lots of people who find the smell revolting, and some even get sick from it.
But I grew up in a world of ubiquitous tobacco smoke. I always kind of liked the smell, myself.
And it is an appetite suppressant. We were all a lot thinner back when we were lighting up rather than munching on chips all the time.
I think my rooting in secret for tobacco, though, mostly rises from my instinctive dislike for everything that’s fashionable.
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