Fiction, Reviews

Saga reading report: ‘Gisli Sursson’s Saga’

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Gisli, his wife Aud, and their foster-daughter from Dasent’s 1866 translation. The weird headdress is (I believe) based on a much later Icelandic folk costume.

Today, we return to the world of the sagas as I report on Gisli Sursson’s Saga from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders. It’s one of the more popular sagas, though the manuscript versions we have (there are three) exhibit a fair number of textual problems.

The story begins, as so many sagas do, with the hero’s ancestors in Norway. One of those ancestors, also named Gisli, borrows a sword from a thrall (how did a thrall get a sword? Outside of one of my novels, I mean?). He refuses to return the sword, he and the thrall kill each other, and the sword ends up broken. The shards are kept, and are later forged into a spearhead. But the metal carries the thrall’s curse.

The family relocates to Iceland, where Gisli is born. He grows up to be a tall man and a great warrior. But he finds himself in a classic honor dilemma – his sister’s husband kills his wife’s brother (who is also his best friend), and Gisli is torn between loyalties (Note: this line has been edited, thanks to a correction by Matt McKendrick). He finally kills his sister’s husband, in his bed, with the cursed spear.

This is an odd element in the saga for me, because I’ve often read that a murder at night was considered shameful murder among the Norse. However, in this translation, it’s explained that if the weapon is left in the body, that mitigates the crime.

In any case, eventually the truth comes out, and Gisli is outlawed. He manages, with the help of a couple rich friends and (especially) his wife, to avoid the avengers for many years – surviving second longest of any Icelandic outlaw, after Grettir the Strong. His last stand is legendary, and his killers go home without honor.

Gisli’s Saga has a high reputation among Icelanders, though there are elements that make it hard for the modern reader to appreciate. Part of the trouble is moral. Gisli (and he’s not alone among saga heroes) has a sense of humor that looks pretty cruel to us. In particular, on two occasions he switches clothes with a thrall to confuse avengers – in one case getting the thrall killed. In both cases, the thralls are described as very stupid – to the original saga readers, the killing of a stupid thrall seemed a triviality.

Another problem is story gaps. At one point, we’re told that Gisli drops his sword as he’s fleeing his enemies. Later on, he has it again. How that happens is not explained. Twice Gisli receives leg wounds under identical circumstances, but they lead to nothing.

What sets the saga apart for the modern reader, I think, is the prominence of Gisli’s wife Aud in the plot. That’s especially remarkable considering that Gisli killed her brother. Aud is utterly faithful, even refusing a large bribe to betray him, and he acknowledges at one point that he wouldn’t have lasted so long without her help.

Gisli Sursson’s Saga is an important outlaw saga, but I don’t think it’ll ever be one of my favorites.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Darker Than Amber,’ by John D. MacDonald

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She sat up slowly, looked in turn at each of us, and her dark eyes were like twin entrances to two deep caves. Nothing lived in those caves. Maybe something had, once upon a time. There were piles of picked bones back in there, some scribbling on the walls, and some gray ash where the fires had been.

Revisited another Travis McGee book by John D. MacDonald, because they never do get old. Darker Than Amber is one of the best, I think. The story works out as dark as the title promises, but that makes the moments of grace shine all the brighter.

Trav and his friend, the economist Meyer, are fishing under a bridge in Marathon, Florida when somebody drops a girl, wired to a cement block, off the deck above. Trav being Trav, he leaps into the water immediately, managing to get her back to the surface in time to save her life with artificial respiration.

She turns out to be a beautiful young woman named Vangie, but she’s no innocent damsel in distress. She’s a prostitute who worked her way up to a very nasty con game in which they not only robbed, but murdered, selected men. Because she experienced a moment of sympathy for one victim, her partners decided to kill her. But she’s “case-hardened,” as Travis puts it, and in the end she can’t be saved, either morally or physically. After a second murder attempt succeeds, Trav makes up his mind to balance the scales for her.

I first encountered Darker Than Amber in its movie adaptation, on TV (I reviewed that film here). The book, needless to say, is a lot better. What is portrayed as an extended, improbable slug-fest between Rod Taylor and William Smith in the film is in the book a very neat gaslighting sting that works, not perfectly, but well enough to satisfy the reader.

Darker Than Amber was published in 1966 and shows its age, but that’s part of its value, it seems to me. Trav’s sexual mores will satisfy neither today’s conservatives nor liberals, but they weren’t remarkable for his time – except perhaps for his admission that he can work up no attraction whatever to Vangie’s shopworn charms.

There’s a scene where a black character delivers a little lecture about civil rights. It must have sounded sophisticated at the time, but it too hasn’t aged well.

Still, that’s how the world looked in those days. The best thing about the book, as always, is Trav himself – he picks up the Philip Marlowe tradition of opening up to the reader about his inner life. But he takes it further. And the reader can’t help liking his self-deprecating manner.

Highly recommended. Cautions for mature subject matter.

Music, Religion

‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’

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“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is the most fully theological of the popular Christmas hymns, and hence my favorite.

I prefer Sissel’s rendition, but her live performance with the Heretic Tabernacle Choir is truncated to two verses. So I looked for something with more.

This version from Celtic Woman is a tad glitzy for my taste, but they do several verses and do not “improve” the lyrics to suit our times. On that basis I share it with you.

Have a blessed Christmas.

Poetry

A Christmas Eve Limerick

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Her sweater was all warm and cozy
With a scene that was Christmasy poesy.
The sermon so sweet
Almost put her to sleep
For she sat in the pew somewhat dozy.

Editor Sam O’Neil has been stoking the fires for limericks on Sunday for a while now, and today being Christmas Eve, I chipped in with the limerick above. #LimerickSunday

Music

Christmas Singing: Good Christian Men, Rejoice

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“Good Christian Men, Rejoice,” performed by RUNA

It’s Christmas Eve. This Christmas carol was written in the 14th century to a medieval German folk tune. It’s in the vein of songs that teach doctrine. The video above weaves another song, In Dulci Jubilo (“In sweet rejoicing”), and the fun they have with it recommended it above other recordings.

“And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them” (Luke 2:20 ESV).

1 Good Christian men, rejoice,
With heart, and soul, and voice;
Give ye heed to what we say:
Jesus Christ is born today;
Ox and ass before him bow,
And he is in the manger now.
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!

2 Good Christian men, rejoice,
With heart, and soul, and voice;
Now ye hear of endless bliss:
Jesus Christ was born for this!
He hath oped the heav’nly door,
And man is blessed evermore.
Christ was born for this!
Christ was born for this!

3 Good Christian men, rejoice,
With heart, and soul, and voice;
Now ye need not fear the grave:
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one and calls you all
To gain his everlasting hall.
Christ was born to save!

Authors, Blogs, Socials

Merry Old Christmastide Links

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Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.

Letters: J.R.R. Tolkien wrote and illustrated letters to his boys as Father Christmas. They were originally published in 1976, the third anniversary of his death. Here’s the start of the one from 1925, copied from BritishHeritage.com.

My dear boys,

I am dreadfully busy this year — it makes my hand more shaky than ever when I think of it — and not very rich. In fact, awful things have been happening, and some of the presents have got spoilt and I haven’t got the North Polar Bear to help me and I have had to move house just before Christmas, so you can imagine what a state everything is in, and you will see why I have a new address, and why I can only write one letter between you both.

Domestic and religious rite
Gave honour to the holy night;
On Christmas Eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas Eve the mass was sung:

Historic Peace: Here’s a review of Tom Holland’s Pax, a history of the Roman Empire. It covers from the end of Nero to Hadrian, about 70 years. “He is the rare breed of serious historian who is fluent in the material, confident in his interpretations, and able to write with a novelistic flourish. Honestly, all 400+ pages of Pax are just so fun to read.“

Hadrian’s Wall: Speaking of Emperor Hadrian, the 200-year-old sycamore tree that stood to the side of Hadrian’s Wall between two hillocks was cut down in September by vandals, but the tree is not lost. “The National Trust confirmed that the seeds from the 200-year-old tree are expected to be able to grow new trees.” And the stump will likely grow again too.

The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose;
The Lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of ‘post and pair’.

C.S. Lewis: A 1946 Christmas sermon for pagans by the author of The Abolition of Man. “When something is wrong, Lewis suggests, the post-Christian Englishperson points to the Government or the education system or to God or whatever as the problem. Rarely does a post-Christian carry around a sense that they might be at fault.”

England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
‘Twas Christmas broach’d the mightiest ale;
‘Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year.

The poetry in this post is taken from a Christmas section of Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field, via the Scottish Poetry Library

Photo: “Child holding Christmas card” by Annie Spratt/ Unsplash

Poetry

Why, Mary, Do You Rejoice in the Prince of Peace?

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Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
         Poor, simple, and of low estate!
   That Strife should vanish, Battle cease,
         O why should this thy soul elate?
Sweet Music’s loudest note, the Poet’s story,—
Did’st thou ne’er love to hear of Fame and Glory?

From “A Christmas Carol,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Despite being unqualified to make such a pronouncement, I doubt Coleridge’s “A Christmas Carol” is a very good poem. The verse is clunky, and I worry that the theme boils down to something John Lennon would approve, but perhaps it’s a good theme for this year. Would we rather glory in war or in the Prince of Peace?

Coleridge wrote “A Christmas Carol” in 1799, after he had taken up Unitarianism officially, and it was set to music many years later when the English were reviving the singing of carols. The words do seem to call for a tune with four lines and a couplet in each verse.

“Joy rose within her, like a summer’s morn;
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.”

The world doesn’t understand peace; many believers don’t either. We are too worldly. We don’t follow Christ in making peace as much as possible, and we don’t understand the necessity of being prepared for war. In the poem, the shepherds come to Mary and she rejoices in their tale. Then, the poet steps in to ask her why she should rejoice in the Prince of Peace (note the verse above).

She responds, “War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled, / That from the aged Father tears his Child!” Strife and Battle break the world and waste everything. “A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, / He kills the Sire and starves the Son.” Yes, yes, but this is personification. War isn’t a person; it’s a description of things people do. We fight each other for power, money, and fame. The Roman founders saw they needed women to be a successful colony, but instead of appealing to their Sabine neighbors, they fought them and took their women. Who taught them to take the path of war instead of the path of peace? No one. It would have been a natural choice for anyone.

I suspect Coleridge was like many who want peace as the absence of war, but the Prince of Peace says he gives a different peace, a peace that follows from seeking the Kingdom of Heaven first. It isn’t one we earn per se. It’s one that follows us, like goodness and mercy. The Lord may put us in a troubled time, and we may even be called to fight for the peace we want to see, but the Lord gives us a peace in knowing his kingdom has no end.

Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:7 ESV)

“Madonna Nursing the Infant Christ by Jan Provoost Flemish 1520 oil” by mharrsch is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Man In the Water,’ by Jon Hill

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Jack Green, hero of Man In the Water, is a Pennsylvania salesman and spare-time conspiracy theorist. He married out of his league, and he and his beautiful wife Stacey have a five-year-old boy they adore. When Stacey gets some troubling medical news, her mother pays for them to take a Caribbean cruise, so they can have a carefree time together before facing whatever challenges will come.

It’s great until they’re attacked in their cabin one night, and Jack finds himself struggling for his life, only to return home alone and find his son missing. Realizing that the authorities are unwilling to do much about the case, Jack turns to a cop friend, who refers him to an FBI agent he knows. And suddenly all those conspiracies Jack has been talking about about take on new – and personal – meaning.

I suppose the first thing I should say about Man In the Water is that it was a page-turner. I kept with it to the end, in spite of elements I didn’t much care for. So the book succeeded in that respect.

But even as I read, I was nitpicking. The writing was pretty slapdash. Words are used imprecisely, as for instance, “qualms” where “doubts” is wanted. This is one of those stories where an ordinary guy gets thrown in among professional killers, which always raises the problem of how to get him out alive without overdoing the luck factor. In my opinion, the luck factor did get overdone here. And the action itself seemed cinematic and implausible.

Even worse, the book ends with a cliffhanger, its central plot problem unresolved. I don’t like that. Ongoing secondary plot threads are fine in a series, but you need to resolve this book’s main plot problem in this book. So that annoyed me.

I think this series is working on having a Christian theme. Jack is an agnostic, and he often spends time thinking about the God question. I would expect him to possibly come to faith further down the line.

But I won’t be reading down the line. Man In the Water wasn’t awful, and I did finish it. But I didn’t like it enough to spring for the sequel.

Fiction, Non-fiction

Movies Are Made of Moments

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British host Michael Parkinson interviews American actor Jimmy Stewart (and later Stewart’s wife, Gloria)

In the 1973 interview above with British TV presenter Michael Parkinson (1935-2023), actor Jimmy Stewart shares a number of interesting trivia from his life and career. They embarrass him in the beginning by sharing a clip from a romantic musical he did, and then at 9:25 shift to It’s a Wonderful Life. Stewart says the film didn’t do well at the box office, but it’s both his and director Frank Capra’s favorite movie.

He goes on to say he has a theory that “creating moments in movies” is most important. “Nobody knows exactly how it happens. What you should do is prepare yourself as best you can to make these moments happen.” Movies are less about the overall performance and more about moments like George Bailey’s desperation in the bar, crying out to God to show him the way.

I found this interview via Anthony Sacramone, who is very smart and a film buff. He added to Stewart’s comments with moments of his own.

Think about Bogart at the bar. Or the look on Hackman’s face as he sees the woman pushing the baby carriage in the middle of the street under the El. Or the “Ba-da-bing!” scene in The Godfather (or the expression on Michael’s face just before he shoots McCluskey and Sollozzo and changes the trajectory of his life forever). Think about that shot of John Wayne through the doorway as he turns and walks off into the distance in The Searchers. James Dean crying, “You’re tearing me ap-a-a-art!” in Rebel without a Cause. Rocky screaming for Adrian at the big fight’s end.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Cursing Stones Murder,’ by George Bellairs

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I’ve read and reviewed one of George Bellairs’ Inspector Littlejohn novels before. I found the book likeable but not outstanding. That’s pretty much my reaction to The Cursing Stones Murder too.

Inspector Littlejohn and his wife are planning a “holiday,” (as they say in England), but a plea from a friend persuades them to change their itinerary. Archdeacon Kinrade, a clergyman in a town on the Isle of Man, is concerned about one of his young parishioners, who has been arrested on suspicion of murder. A local womanizer’s body has been dredged up by scallop fishermen, and circumstantial evidence points to the young man. But Kinrade is certain he’s innocent. Littlejohn feels obligated to the archdeacon for past favors, and Man is a pleasant place to visit, so they change their plans.

Littlejohn has no actual authority on Man, but the local police detective seems happy to have his unofficial help. The young accused man is soon released, but the case proves to be the kind where there are too many people with motives. On top of that, people who know secrets are deliberately trying to mislead the police, in order to protect others.

The Cursing Stones Murder is a decent mystery, but written for an audience now dead (around 1950). It’s more of a cozy than a police procedural, and suffers (I would suggest) from containing too many nice characters. I like a book that keeps the violence low, but in this case I was sometimes in danger of losing interest altogether – until the end, when stuff started happening, leading to one of those classic cozy endings where the decent people who’ve made mistakes are allowed to die rather than face the law.

Inspector Littlejohn himself is not a very vivid character, and characterization isn’t author Bellairs’ forte. Mrs. Littlejohn seems to have almost no personality at all – she is endlessly supportive and never complains about the continual changes her husband makes in their plans. She’s almost the perfect pre-feminist wife, but I’m not sure such women actually ever existed.

The writing is good, and the Manx landscapes well exploited. If you’re looking for a quiet mystery without a lot of bad language or violence, The Cursing Stones Murder may be what you’re looking for.