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Spring achieved, and a ‘writing’ update

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Photo credit: Matt Botsford. Unsplash license.

Before I get to my tale of angst, I feel I ought to note that today was beautiful in terms of weather. Nearly 70 degrees. It was the first day of the year I slid the screens down in a couple windows and opened them for fresh air. I always feel an easing of the soul when this happens. The dark time is ended. We’ve made it through alive.

I have another ‘writing’ update – and the collective holds its collective breath. (No breath for you! Your social credit score has fallen below permissible levels!)

As I’ve told you before, I’ve been plugging along, trying to learn Audacity, the free recording software that most aspiring book narrators seem to start with. Audacity is quite sophisticated, really, which is part of what scares me.

Thinking back to radio school (Brown Institute, Minneapolis, 1980), I enjoyed a peculiar place in my class. Aside from being one of the oldest students, I was generally considered (or so I remember it) the best copy reader and the worst engineer. A popular, oft-repeated story told of how I panicked in the control room one day, reached desperately for some dial or other, and went over backward in my chair (it had casters), so that I presented the spectacle, through the control booth window, of my feet waving in the air.

This story was completely true.

The disconnect I seem to have with my hands – sort of like a seven-second delay – has always prevented me from handling any mechanical device with confidence, from a can opener to an automobile. Also, I seem to lack the common male aptitude for spatial visualization. So I’m clumsy with any kind of equipment. Typing is a repetitive and minimalistic task, so I can handle that. I’m not much good for anything more demanding.

But today, my drilling with Audacity – just recording and playing and editing a little, throwing my work away at the end of each session – seems to have begun to bear fruit. I’m feeling a little more confident with it. Not a master, but not a stranger in town anymore. That’s gratifying.

One of my major regrets in my life comes from those radio school days. One of my instructors, a professional broadcaster who taught as a side gig, offered to help me get into voiceover work. He considered me talented enough to make it in that business. I was flattered, and made a preliminary demo reel, just for his critique.

He critiqued it. Suggested some improvements.

I was embarrassed that it wasn’t perfect, and I gave up.

This was stupid. I had a chance to get into a field where I could have prospered. But that never-silenced Voice In My Head argued me out of trying any more. My whole life could have been different if I’d accepted the criticism, made improvements, and kept at it until I made the thing work.

The Voice In My Head, I realized recently, doesn’t really hate me. It’s just terrified of failure. It’s trying to protect me from getting hurt. It fails proactively, because it’s less painful to just surrender at the start, rather than trying and falling on my face.

This book narration thing, it seems to me, is a second chance. This time I’m going to try. This time I’m going to take the risk.

Honestly, what do I have to lose?

Fiction, Reviews

‘Holy Disorders,’ by Edmund Crispin

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Edmund Crispin (real name Robert Bruce Montgomery) was one of the great names of England’s Golden Age of Detection (under the Montgomery name he was a noted composer of music in various fields, ranging from saucy film scores to reverent sacred works). His most famous literary creation is Professor Gervase Fenn, an English professor at a fictional Oxford college. Holy Disorders is one of Crispin’s later works.

The story starts with Fenn’s friend Geoffrey Vintner, a composer of church music, receiving a muddled telegram from Fenn, demanding that he travel immediately to the fictional cathedral town of Tolnbridge – and bring a butterfly net! The lengthy description of Geoffrey’s journey, during which he is attacked three times by thugs, has a fantastical, dreamlike quality that reminded me a little of Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday.

When he arrives in Tolnbridge, Geoffrey finds that Fenn has completely forgotten about him – which isn’t unusual. But the cathedral organist has been attacked and is in the hospital, and Fenn is investigating. That very night, the bishop is killed in the cathedral, and the organist is murdered in the hospital. Fenn and Geoffrey go to work comparing alibis and witness accounts, eventually uncovering hidden, unsuspected evil.

Holy Disorders is fairly disordered in its own right, in terms of plot. The puzzle is complicated, and the action often less than plausible. I also have to say that I figured out the murderer’s identity before I was supposed to.

The story had other problems too. I liked the writing – very classic English and erudite. But my main problem with the book was that our hero, Gervase Fenn, was one of the most unlikeable heroes I’ve ever encountered (not the worst, but hardly endearing). He shares with Sherlock Holmes a tendency to rudeness. But Holmes possessed some manners, and was only rude when necessary. Fenn genuinely doesn’t seem to care – which makes his occasional moral pronouncements sound unconvincing.

There are many churchmen in this book, and none of them are very saintly, while a couple are unworthy characters. The attitude to Christianity overall seems positive though, though the author’s theology appears weak. I was disturbed by attempts to partly justify the old witch trials (this is a subject on which I have strong views).

Modern readers will be amused by the depiction of “marihuana” in this story. I loathe pot personally, but we know today that it’s not anything like as addictive as it’s portrayed here.

There are no sex scenes, though I was surprised by a scene where a couple swim together in the nude. Very racy for a book published in 1940.

My final judgment on Holy Disorders is that it has its pleasures, but is not a great mystery novel. Edmund Crispin, perhaps, deserves another reading, selecting a better example of his craft. I actually enjoyed the book more than not, in spite of its weaknesses.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Deep Shadow,’ by Nick Sullivan

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Boone Fischer is a divemaster who works guiding scuba excursions on the remote island of Bonaire in the Caribbean. He likes the job, but is restless, so he’s taken another job on another island. The problem is that he’s now falling in love with Emily, an English girl he’s working with, and hasn’t yet worked up the nerve to tell her he’s leaving.

One day while diving, Boone spots something he’s never seen before – a submarine. It’s not military or scientific. Emily snaps a couple pictures of it. These pictures prove of interest to two American customers – who just happen to be military. They make inquiries, and learn that there are rumors that a Venezuelan drug cartel has hired Russian engineers to build them a large sub for smuggling purposes.

What none of them know is that the cartel itself has been betrayed – one of their engineers is a Muslim extremist, and his plan is to take the sub and use it not for smuggling – but as a massive bomb.

That’s the premise of Nick Sullivan’s Deep Shadow. Boone, our hero, aside from being young and strong and agile, is also fortunate in being an expert in Brazilian martial arts. He’ll need them. In fact, luck plays, perhaps, too large a part in this story from a plotting perspective. The Caribbean is a large body of water – what are the odds Luke would stumble on the submarine, not once, but twice, purely by happenstance?

Overall, there was nothing wrong with Deep Shadow. It was a well-told, exciting adventure story. The prose was professional. I found it a little simplistic – it reminded me of those kids’ novels I used to read, where the boy gets involved with spies or detectives or something, figures out what’s wrong before the adults do, and ends up the hero. However, Deep Shadow makes no claim to be Dostoevski – it promises a rousing adventure story, and it delivers just that.

There’s violence, but not too graphic, and hints of sex but no sex scenes. If you’re looking for uncomplicated action entertainment, perhaps for reading on the beach, Deep Shadow is a good choice.

Music

Sunday Singing: Up From the Grave He Arose

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Lars talked about rousing Easter music last week, so I thought I’d find one for today. “Up From the Grave He Arose” was written by American preacher and hymn writer Robert Lowry (1826-1899). It’s one of those stirring kind of songs that calls up images of evangelistic rallies or brass bands on the sidewalk.

“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:24 ESV)

1 Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior,
waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

Refrain:
Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o’er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

2 Vainly they watch his bed, Jesus my Savior,
vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord! [Refrain]

3 Death cannot keep its prey, Jesus my Savior;
he tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord! [Refrain]

Poetry

My Daughter Has Published Her Poetry

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Earlier this year, my oldest daughter told me she had published a book of her poetry. She didn’t ask me about it ahead of time. She didn’t come to me with an idea and say she understood I’ve looked into writing and publishing for years so maybe I would have some thoughts. No. She just made it happen behind my back.

As you would expect, I reacted as gently and affirmingly as could be imagined. I think I yelled at her. I tried to keep a level head and ask questions like, “What do you mean?!” and “Are you kidding me?”

But this is the world we have. Little girls can earn their own money and pay for publishing services, not unlike those which have employed me in the past, and get their words in print on actual pages and physical books–without their father’s involvement.

Her book is Silent Beauty Speaks. It’s a collection of nature poems, efforts at capturing the sunrise or a night’s calm.

The gentle swell of airy song,
The lullaby of breath belongs
To quiet winds that round the ear,
Whispering softly,
"Do not fear."

That’s a stanza from “Lilac Night.” Here’s her opening poem, “A Marbled Sky.”

When first I rose, and laid my eyes
Upon the marbled sunrise,
The moving clouds of dark and gold,
I saw a story yet untold
The expectation of the day
A light to hold, to hope, and pray
May I find grace enough today

I’d love to hear your thoughts on her work, not that I would share them. I’m too critical on my own. Any criticism you have will stay between us. But if you say you’ve been moved to invest in the future of humanity, I might pass that on.

Photo: Luke Ellis-Craven via Unsplash

Reviews

Watching Jeremy Brett’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’

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I’ve found myself watching some of the old Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes episodes from the 1990s, on YouTube. They’re all there, I think, or at least most of them. I’d forgotten how truly excellent they were, especially at the beginning. Toward the end, Jeremy Brett was visibly unwell and putting on weight, and those scripts, based on inferior Conan Doyle stories, were (in my opinion) weaker.

I was surprised to discover that Jeremy Brett played Freddy in the 1964 film version of “My Fair Lady.” He was good in that role, but playing what they used to call “Juvenile” parts was not his true destiny.  (I always thought Freddy should have gotten the girl, and indeed that’s what happens in G. B. Shaw’s original play.)

Granada Productions made a serious effort to do Sherlock Holmes in a manner faithful to the original stories. The series bowled me over back in the day, and it has aged excellently. Brett got the job because he resembled Sidney Paget’s original illustrations – except that Paget’s Holmes was pretty bald. The sets were great, the costumes were great, and Brett’s performance was at once faithful to Doyle’s descriptions and wildly original. Doyle tells us that Holmes would have made a great actor, and Brett plays him as an actor, affecting theatrical gestures and vocal flourishes. One wonders whether the man is quite sane (Brett’s life story suggests he wasn’t entirely), but we always wondered about Holmes the same way.

If you’re looking for top-shelf literary adaptations, check these out.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Twist of a Knife,’ by Anthony Horowitz

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Anthony Horowitz is a very famous author and screenwriter whom I don’t recall ever hearing of before. (Though he created both Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War.) I got a chance to read The Twist of A Knife, book 4 in his Hawthorne and Horowitz series, and found it distinctive, well-crafted, and entertaining. Also a little weird. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In this series, apparently, author Horowitz has cast his real-life self as the narrator. References to his own life seem to be authentic (I have no way of checking). But here he has invented a situation (I assume it’s fictional) where he’s gotten involved with an enigmatic private eye known only as Hawthorne. They solve cases together, and Horowitz turns them into bestselling books. Hawthorne appears to be somewhat autistic. Certainly peculiar. He was kicked off the police force, lives in a sterile flat, and never talks about his life. He keeps his own counsel entirely, and Horowitz can never tell what he’s thinking. He’s not above petty revenge when he feels insulted. There are echoes of Holmes and Watson here, but Hawthorne is Holmesian in a highly distilled form.

As The Twist of a Knife opens, Horowitz is telling Hawthorne that he wants to end their association. The books they’ve produced have done well, but it’s all been too intense for him. He wants to go back to his quiet life of ordinary writing. Anyway, his first West End play is about to open. He hopes this will be the beginning of a stellar playwrighting career, a new stage in his life.

The first night seems to go well. But critic Margaret Throsby is in the audience – the most hated critic in London. She appears at the first night party and insults the cast, and then writes a scathing review. Soon after that, she’s dead – stabbed to death with a dagger which happens to belong to Anthony Horowitz. The police question him, and he suddenly finds himself in personal need of Hawthorne’s detective skills – but will Hawthorne be willing to help?

The tone is generally light, though the dramatic tension is elevated enough. Horowitz is not a great prose stylist, and his characterizations are (in my opinion) a little superficial. But the plot was extremely neat and clever. The book succeeds primarily on the author’s inventiveness, and that is formidable.

The author also deserves credit for venturing into the dangerous territory of discussing race and “cultural appropriation.” He does it in a safe way, by making the minority concerned one whose actual presence in England is negligible, but I think he was brave to address it at all.

The classic Agatha Christie “payoff” scene was artfully done. There was even a positive Narnia reference.

The Twist of a Knife is a professionally crafted detective entertainment that will particularly delight fans of the Cozy subgenre. Worth the price for the entertainment.

Authors, The Press

J. K. Rowling and the prisoner of conscience

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First of all, I’m not a fan of J. K. Rowling. This view does not rise from my having read her works and finding them wanting. I’ve never read them at all (saw one Harry Potter movie). I have been advised by some that I ought to read them simply to make myself familiar with a major creator in our (sort of) shared genre. And I admit that’s fair enough.

My problem is that the biblical prohibition against witchcraft is ingrained deeply in my… my blood, or bones, or DNA or something. I’ve always been against witches, even when I portrayed them sympathetically (as I did in Wolf Time). That’s just one of those places where I Do Not Go. Some readers tell me the HP books have Christian themes. It may be true. But I can’t bring myself to check it out.

More than that, Ms. Rowling has more than once expressed opinions on various topics that I disagreed with. If she is a Christian, as the claim is, she’s a rather different kind than I am.

Nonetheless, right now she’s one of my heroes (you’re not supposed to say heroine anymore, are you?). She has done the right thing – the hard thing – at just the moment when it needs doing.

This from the BBC:

JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts – inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.

The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.

She said “freedom of speech and belief” was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.

Earlier, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a “rising tide of hatred”.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.

Her own response was exemplary, and will resound to her honor in future ages:

Ms Rowling said: “I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”

That’s precisely right.

The issue is not whether an opinion is correct or not. It’s not whether it’s sensitive or not. It’s not whether the person speaking is one you like or not.

J.K. Rowling holds opinions I disagree with. I would not have her muzzled by the law for that. I wouldn’t have the law muzzle Susan Sarandon, or Joy Behar, or Greta Thunberg or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Shoot, I wouldn’t muzzle Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, as long as he wasn’t actually organizing violence. That’s our system. Everybody gets to talk. Even the crazies.

I read a book about Thomas Jefferson when I was a kid. It explained his conviction that if everybody gets to talk, the people will be able to pass judgment on their arguments. I thought that was pretty cool.

It may be that we haven’t got the common sense to make that kind of judgment anymore. But we won’t re-learn it by being protected from “hurtful” ideas.

Music, Religion, Writing

‘Now the Green Blade Riseth’, and a ‘writing’ update

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Above, the King’s College Choir with what I must confess is the only Easter hymn I really like. And it’s not one that’s commonly sung in the churches of my own religious body.

And even this one, lovely as it (it shares a melody with the Christmas hymn, “Sing We Now of Christmas”), doesn’t entirely satisfy me. What Easter merits is a good, rousing, triumphal hymn, something on the lines of “A Mighty Fortress” or “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” We do have triumphal Easter hymns – there’s “Up From the Grave He Arose!” and “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!” But personally I find them kind of clunky. They don’t sing well, to my mind. I want one I can throw my head back and bellow, as I used to do at Christmas, before my singing voice gave out.

I should probably write a text myself, and see if somebody can come up with a melody.

Better yet would be if somebody wrote a rousing melody and I could put words to it.

It’s been 2,000 years. Somebody should have taken care of this by now.

Want a writing update? I’m not writing at all right now, in the strictest sense of the term. I’ve got my beta readers reading The Baldur Game, and I’m using the time for the necessary procedural stage of forgetting everything about it. So I can come back to it with my mental palate cleansed.

Therefore, I have turned to the business of book narration. Some generous friends have given me a decent microphone and other equipment, and I’ve carved out a makeshift studio space in my bedroom. I’m playing with the system – especially the Audacity recording software. I have a certain level of technophobia, not unusual, I suppose, in people of a certain age. Right now I’m just doing drills. Self-assigned exercises. The plan is that, once I’ve got The Baldur Game published, I can devote a chunk of time to getting The Year of the Warrior recorded, so I can release it on Audible. I was always considered a good copy reader when I was in radio. Maybe audio books will be my ticket to the big time.

It could happen.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Long Farewell,’ by Michael Innes

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I knew of Michael Innes (real name J. I. M. Stewart), one of the foremost classic English mystery novelists. I’ve probably read one or two of his stories before, though I don’t remember them. A deal on The Long Farewell persuaded me to buy it. It wasn’t bad, but it shows its age (the book was published in 1958. I suppose I have to agree that that’s a long time ago, though I remember the year well).

Our hero, Sir John Appleby, Commissioner of Scotland Yard, visits his friend Lewis Packford, an amateur scholar of Renaissance literature, while they are both on holiday in Italy. Lewis appears distracted, and makes several references to amazing possible discoveries of literary documents, and also to forgery.

On his return to England, Sir John is shocked to learn that his friend Lewis has shot himself to death at his family estate. He had recently made a sensational announcement about purchasing an old Italian book of stories – with notes in Shakespeare’s own hand in the margins of the Othello story. As if that wasn’t enough, Lewis has been discovered, posthumously, to be a bigamist.

Sir John is suspicious, and heads out to the Packford estate. He finds that Lewis’ brother has kept all the people who were present at the time of the death on site as guests, so Sir John is able to re-interview them all. Slowly he pieces the wicked plot together.

The mystery in The Long Farewell was all right. The characters were all right too. It was the presentation that slowed it down. Author Innes clung to Victorian – or at least Edwardian – literary conventions. The language is flowery, and the characters tend to express themselves in the style of literary essays. The book was a slow read.

There’s nothing really wrong with The Long Farewell, if you like this sort of thing. But if you’re looking for pulse-pounding entertainment, I’d advise you to go elsewhere.