Fiction, Reviews

‘Chasing Shadows: Back to Barterra,’ by J. M. N. Reynolds.

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The college president pointed to Maximos as an example of the diversity of the college and Maximos would not-so-quietly note that the college had hired nobody else like him since the day his Berkeley degree had fooled them into a bad guess about his views.

A couple weeks ago I “met” Prof. John Mark N. Reynolds, provost of Houston Baptist University, when he and some others interviewed me for a podcast (which will be posted in early March; I’ll let you know). I had such a good time that I decided to check out his books, and found that he’d published a fantasy novel. I bought it for my Kindle, though well aware that academic achievement does not necessarily a good novelist make.

I’m happy to report that Chasing Shadows: Back to Barterra is extremely good.

The main character is Peter Alexis, a university instructor in Rochester, NY, plagued by recurring dreams about the deaths of Czar Nicholas II and his family. A seeming seizure pulls him back to that event so vividly that his friends fear he’ll never regain consciousness in the present. But when he does return, he has begun to remember what happened in his 16th year, when he was king of Barterra, a world in another dimension.

What Reynolds does here (and generally very successfully) is to merge a Charles Williams story with a Narnia story. The events on our world, in the first section, are extremely Williamsian, and convey the same atmosphere. They center on Peter and his Inklingesque circle of friends, a fellowship of Christians. Then they travel to Barterra, faced with the task of undoing Peter’s great failure from his last visit. The book ends with promises of at least one sequel, which I hope will be forthcoming. An odd feature is the considerable use of Eastern Orthodox elements.

I have some criticisms. There were some narrative bumps — confusing scene jumps and occasions when interior monologue went on too long. But taken all in all it was a very good read in the tradition of Williams and Lewis, and I think both those authors would have approved.

Recommended.

Religion

Why Read This Book on Luther?

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Dr. Martin Marty, who has written his own book on Martin Luther, praise a new book from Westminster Theological Seminary Professor Carl Trueman.

“What readers must by the end have found remarkable is the way Dr. Trueman has brought clarity and some sense of system to the often obscure, paradoxical, and anything-but-systematic writings of Luther on the Christian life. I would argue that Trueman has served well by keeping his feet on firm ground as he has stood on an approach to Christian life which he sometimes calls Presbyterian or Reformed or evangelical, often in differing combinations.”

Luther on the Christian Life: Cross and Freedom, from the Theologians on the Christian Life series by Crossway, was released this month.

Authors

Walton Street: Where Wodehouse Lived

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“Once home to the humorist P.G. Wodehouse, Walton Street still emanates an old-school English charm,” writes Amiee Farrell. “Though flanked by Harrods and The Conran Shop, it’s an enclave of independent, if occasionally chichi, antiques and interiors shops, and art galleries and boutiques that has — so far — bucked the trend for high-end homogenization.”

I thought you’d want to know this. No need to thank me.

And on a loosely related note, Gene Veith talks about Sacramone’s list of funniest books, saying Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy should be on the list.

Bookselling

Black Market for Textbooks

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In Mauritania, where 60 percent of the country is under age 25, school books are hard to find. Added to what distribution issues publishers may have, thieves are taking books to sell on the black market. Where a book should cost under $1 at a legal bookseller, on the black market it will be sell for $10.

Aldada Weld El-Salem, who is in his thirties, said he was lucky to find six schoolbooks for his daughter for a total of 20,000 Ouguiya ($68.81) on the black market.

“I did not want to risk the future of my daughter so I recently gave in to the prices of the dealers and I paid whatever they asked for,” he said. “I did not want my daughter to be a victim of the indifference of the official authorities toward a current crisis afflicting all of Mauritania’s schools.”

(via The Literary Saloon)

Uncategorized

Why ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Won’t Die

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Sam Tanenhaus answers the question of To Kill a Mockingbird‘s endurance.

“For all the merits of the latest criticism of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” its appeal never rested on its realistic picture of Southern life. It was anachronistic even in its day (one reason, perhaps, that Lee set the action much earlier). There were sit-ins in Nashville and in Greensboro, N.C., in February 1960, five months before “To Kill a Mockingbird” was published. Within a year the Freedom Rides had challenged Lee’s sorting of humanity into simple categories — the high-minded Finches and the humble, hard-working African-Americans who look to them for protection, both groups united against the ‘ignorant, trashy people’ who represent the true danger to the community.” (via Books, Inq.)

Authors, Poetry

The Rain-Soaked Poet, Philip Levine

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A U.S. Poet Laureate died last weekend. Philip Levine, a Detroit native, was the 18th U.S. Poet Laureate. He was caught in the rain one day when his neighbor noticed him.

Michael Bourne tells the story and a bit more. “The anger that filled him in his early years was of no use to him as a writer, he told me. ‘It was a huge hindrance because it meant I couldn’t write anything worth a damn about that work life,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get that disinterestedness that’s often required. I couldn’t get Wordsworth’s tranquility. It took me until I was about 35 before I really wrote a poem that was about work.’”

Read some of Levine’s poems here.

Bookselling

Bookstores Finding Small Spaces to Survive

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Borders and other large bookstores have closed over the past several years, leaving some towns without a local bookseller. Some business owners are trying out smaller spaces as a sustainable business model for their brick-and-mortar stores.

Judith Rosen reports,

This 1,200 sq. ft. store in Beverly, Cabot Street Books & Cards, which opens in May, will also be paired with an Atomic Cafe. “We’re trying to get the model right,” said Hugo. “I’m hoping we can do more of these. The stock is managed better because booksellers touch it and feel it within 10 ft. of their desk. The trick is traffic.”

Uncategorized

The Rifleman on DVD

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The Rifleman (five seasons from 1958-1963) is now out on DVD. Marvin Olasky writes that it isn’t only a great western, but has a unique leading man. “Lucas McCain was also a compassionate conservative, supporting a recovering alcoholic who became a marshal, giving an ex-con a job on his ranch, and helping a man from China open a laundry. In one episode McCain could not believe that an old enemy had changed and become a doctor, but he admitted his mistake after the former adversary helped him in a gunfight.”

Fiction, Reviews

The D. C. Smith novels, by Peter Grainger

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It’s been a week or two since I finished reading the D. C. Smith mystery novels, and I’d better review them before I forget them completely. Not that they’re forgettable — they were quite impressive.

D. C. Smith is an interesting continuing detective character, and has been compared to another English police detective, Inspector Morse, by reviewers. But after reading An Accidental Death, But For the Grace, and Luck and Judgement, I would say that a closer parallel would be the American TV cop, Columbo. Smith is the kind of man who tends to be underestimated by suspects, witnesses, and even other cops. He’s small, shabby, and unprepossessing. He knows this and uses it to his advantage. In fact he’s generally the smartest person in the room, and has commando fighting skills. He also plays a mean rock guitar, though not often since the loss of his beloved wife to cancer.

His name is kind of a joke. “D.C.” in English police slang means “Detective Constable.” This is what everyone calls him, but he’s actually a Detective Sergeant. He used to be a Detective Inspector, but voluntarily took a demotion to be closer to street-level puzzle solving.

As is my wont, I was more interested in the character than in the mysteries as such. I found the D. C. Smith books very enjoyable. No great moral lessons here — Smith the character is an open skeptic about religion, and But For the Grace deals with the question of assisted suicide in a pretty ambiguous manner.

One odd thing is that I found the books very slow in places. Sometimes I wanted to tell the author to just move things along. Nevertheless, I liked the books and stayed with them to see what Smith would do next. I recommend them with the usual cautions.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture