Authors

What Kept Conan Doyle Going?

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Before he created the most illustrious residents of Baker Street—whom he nearly called J. Sherrinford Holmes and Ormond Sacker—Arthur Conan Doyle had already written a novel that was lost in the mail, and contributed excellent short fiction to various magazines. “The Captain of the Pole-Star” (1883), set in the Arctic, is one of the most haunting Victorian tales of the supernatural. But the young writer could hardly think of quitting his day job as a doctor in Southsea. A Study in Scarlet was turned down by one publisher after another, until it was finally accepted by Ward, Lock, and Co., who offered to buy the British copyright for a derisory twenty-five pounds.

Michael Dirda describes Conan Doyle’s desire to write better work than his Sherlockian mysteries and what kept him writing them. (via Prufrock)

Uncategorized

Free at last! Or next to last.

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Today is the day. I was planning to shout “Free at last! Free at last!” Except that I’m not quite free. Last night I finished the final test for my last class in graduate school – ever (I assume). I still have to do the capstone project in the spring, though, so I’m not quite a free man. More like on parole. But the paroled man hears the prison doors clang shut behind him and surveys a frightening world of relative freedom, for which he’s not sure he’s quite ready. I’ll have to re-learn the art of spending a normal evening – or as normal as evenings get when you write novels in your spare time.

My last two classes were a little disappointing, frankly. One was taught by a venerable professor who’s been doing the same thing for years and doesn’t bother to update his material, or the links embedded in his assignments. The other was taught by a man who is, I believe, an authority in his field. Only the discipline he was teaching us (I won’t say which one) is hard – or impossible – to properly teach at a distance. So he does the best he can, grades generously, and more or less herds us through the routine without high expectations.

It was for that second class that I turned in my test last night. It was part multiple choice and part essay. I’m not sure about my answers to the multiple choice questions – the points covered were pretty fine ones. But the essay part – of which I was more frightened – actually went pretty well, I think. Sometimes it pays off to have a writer’s skills. To be able to gather a handful of scattered ideas and citations and organize them into a sort of a coherent whole. When I was done I was surprised how pleased I was with it.

All that remains is the capstone project, which is some kind of research project, subject yet to be determined. Like a thesis, but less. Later this year they’ll abolish the requirement completely, but it seems to be impossible, due to the arcane rules of registration and academic credits, to simply put off my graduation until that time.

But the bottom line is this – I’m done with the hard part. I’ve been looking forward to this day for more than two years. So consider me jubilant. Even though I’m mostly kind of tired.

Fiction

Recovering a Star Wars Childhood

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Star Wars play in the morning lightAndrew Barber says, “I don’t want Jedi; I want my childhood back.”

Thanks to Charles Taylor’s work A Secular Age, I’ve come to believe the most important question about big entertainment is not “what is this movie/videogame/album about?” but “what is it for?” I don’t think we need another article analyzing the nitty-gritty thematic details of Star Wars. It is a simple, well-told tale of good versus evil with memorable characters and mammoth effects.

What I’m interested in is the function of Star Wars. When thousands of fans line up outside of theaters on December 17 to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens (of which I will be one), what will it be for?

His post links to another one, reviewing a presentation of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age with an application to the Star Wars prequels. What went wrong with those first three episodes added onto the well-loved space epic? Mike Cosper blames secularism.

The original trilogy, in all the ways it left questions open and invited imagination, in the way it used effects in a sparing way, was enchanted. It was an open world with questions to explore and a sense of the unknown. The prequels, then, made the mistake of disenchanting the world. The mysteries all had answers. Even the overwhelming presence of CGI has a “secular age” parallel: the overwhelming culture of production and consumption. When every moment is a visual feast, nothing is worth celebrating.

Religion

Did God Change in the Incarnation?

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Jared Wilson writes about the problem we ignore at Christmastime: if God is immutable, if he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then how did he not change when he was incarnated as a man? He says, “What Paul is getting at in Philippians 2:5-8 is not that Jesus did not ‘hold’ or ‘maintain’ the fullness of his divinity but that he did not exploit it or leverage it against his experiencing the fullness of humanity. He didn’t pull the parachute, in other words.”

Fiction

Scary Ghost Stories of Christmases Long Ago

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“The first key to a Christmas ghost story,” writes Colin Fleming, “is a convivial atmosphere. People in these stories are well fed, they’re often hanging out in groups, you feel like you’re hanging out with them, and you do not wish to leave any more than they do. It is cold outside but warm in here, and it’s time to rediscover that sense of play that so many of us adults lose over the years, and which, when we are fortunate, we remember to rediscover at Christmas.”

He recommends five old stories to fit the bill.

Authors

Kipling Didn’t Look Back

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How Kipling seemed to a brilliant contemporary is shown by the parody “PC X36” in Max Beerbohm’s A Christmas Garland (1912). The narrator’s policeman friend Judlip spotted an old man with “a hoary white beard, a red ulster with the hood up, and what looked like a sack over his shoulder” standing on a rooftop.

Ordering him down to the street, the constable grabbed his collar. “The captive snivelled something about peace on earth, good will toward men. ‘Yuss,’ said Judlip.

‘That’s in the Noo Testament, ain’t it? The Noo Testament contains some uncommon nice readin’ for old gents an’ young ladies. But it ain’t included in the librery o’ the Force. We confine ourselves to the Old Testament – O T, ’ot. An’ ’ot you’ll get it. Hup with that sack, an’ quick march!’ ”

Beerbohm is right about the often annoying rendering of dialect and the petty violence, but he puts his finger on a more important feature of Kipling’s world: its rejection of Christianity. Kipling lost all that in the Southsea boarding house.

Christopher Howse describes the hard edges of Rudyard Kipling and some of the reasons he became that way. Like his rejection of the gospel, Kipling cut ties with his past repeatedly.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Short Drop,’ by Matthew FitzSimmons

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Matthew FitzSimmons is a new author, and he seems to have hit a home run with his first novel, a mystery/thriller entitled The Short Drop.

The story’s hero is Gibson Vaughn, a young man with world-class potential who’s the victim of his own indiscretions. Years ago he was briefly famous when he hacked into the computers of a prominent senator, Benjamin Lombard, uncovering evidence of malfeasance. The whole thing blew up on him when further investigation revealed that the actual author of the malfeasance was Gibson’s father, the senator’s chief aid. Gibson’s father committed suicide, and Gibson himself barely escaped prison when he was allowed to enlist in the marines. On leaving the service Gibson learned that the senator, now Vice President, has neither forgotten nor forgiven. In spite of his skills, Gibson is unhireable.

Then he gets an offer from a security company to do a short-term hacking job. In spite of his desperation, he almost says no, because the head of the company is a man who used to work for Sen. Lombard. He played a major role in prosecuting Gibson. But Gibson changes his mind when he learns the purpose of the investigation. They’re trying to find out what happened to Suzanne Lombard, the senator’s daughter. She was like a sister to Gibson, and she disappeared as a teenager while Gibson was in jail awaiting trial. He joins the team to work with a male/female pair of operatives, and gets involved more deeply than anybody planned.

The story that follows must have been a nightmare to outline. Surprise follows surprise, good guys and bad guys change places, people die unexpectedly, and the plot twists around like a politician’s principles. The tension never lets up.

Highly recommended, with the usual cautions.

Authors

Not a spy, but a cool story

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There was big news in the world of C. S. Lewis studies today. Christianity Today released an article by Harry Lee Poe about the discovery of a previously unknown recording of a radio talk by C. S. Lewis. Not a talk for the BBC, but for Iceland, on Her Majesty’s Secret Service, so to speak:

Until now, the general public and the world of scholarship had no idea that C. S. Lewis began his wartime service by undertaking a mission for MI6. Long before James Bond, Lewis rendered service to this clandestine branch of British Intelligence, which was so secret for so long that few people knew of its existence, and few of those knew its actual name. Alternatively known as Military Intelligence, the Secret Service, and MI6, its actual name may be the Secret Intelligence Service. Ian Fleming gave the head of this spy network the code name of M, but in real life he is simply known as the Chief. When Lewis came on board at the beginning of World War II, it was still a fledgling group of amateurs desperately working to save their island home from disaster.

The story is interesting, not only for the revelation of Lewis’ work for British Intelligence, but because it involves one of his all too rare explications of his passion for Norse literature and myth.

I think the title’s a bit misleading, since Jack Lewis was nothing like a spy, but the story’s a big deal nonetheless. Kudos to Harry Lee Poe for his discovery.

Uncategorized

Japanese Illustrated Coffee Cups

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Illustrator Adrian Hogan says a friend of his, another artist, inspired him to illustrate disposable coffee cups with Tokyo street scenes. CNN has the story.

Religion

Is Pastoral Advice Making Pastors Depressed?

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The gospel isn’t “do better” or “try harder”, and yet the advice we tell ourselves about preaching usually falls into this category. Why do we believe that “do better” and “try harder” will motivate better preaching? If it’s powerless for the banker, it’s powerless for the preacher as well.

Pastor Mike Leake offers this point as one of the reasons for depression among pastors.