Fiction, Reviews

‘The Luck of the Bodkins,” by P.G. Wodehouse

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‘…Why not take a chance? You would like Hollywood, you know. Everybody does. Girdled by the everlasting hills, bathed in eternal sunshine. Honest, it kind of gets to you. What I mean, there’s something going on there all the time. Malibu. Catalina. Aqua Caliente. And if you aren’t getting divorced yourself, there’s always one of your friends is, and that gives you something to chat about in the long evenings. And it isn’t half such a crazy place as they make out. I know two-three people in Hollywood that are part sane.’

Monty Bodkin, hero of P.G. Wodehouse’s The Luck of the Bodkins, is a fairly unassuming chap. Decent looking, and rich to boot. All he wants is to marry Gertrude Butterwick, stalwart member of the All England Women’s Field Hockey team. But Gertrude, for all her charms, has a lamentable inclination to jealousy. While they were at Cannes, she noticed Monty appreciating the on-screen beauty of movie star Lotus Blossom, and she promptly broke their engagement. Now she’s about to board the ship SS Atlantic, steaming off to America with her teammates.

So Monty books passage himself. On the same ship, as luck (and the plot) would have it, sails none other but Lotus “Lottie” Blossom herself, along with her fiancé, Monty’s old school chum Ambrose Tennyson, whom Lottie’s boss, movie tycoon Ivor Llewellyn (also aboard), has hired as a screen writer (under the misapprehension that he’s the Tennyson who wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade”). Ivor is suffering internal torments, having been commanded by his masterful wife to smuggle a pearl necklace into New York for her. Also aboard is Ambrose’s brother Reggie, off to take an unwanted job in Canada on the orders of his family. He’d rather marry Ivor’s assistant Mabel, but can’t afford it.

So what we’ve got is three young couples, two of whom are desperately trying, as fortunes alter, to find angles by which to manipulate Ivor into giving the guy a cushy Hollywood job. Except for Monty, who neither wants nor needs a job, but Gertrude’s father expects him to hold one as a demonstration of character. As all this intrigue swirls around the dyspeptic movie tycoon, everyone’s calculations are advanced and frustrated, in turn, by Albert Peasemarch, the well-meaning but not terribly bright room steward, sort of a Jeeves without the intellect.

I first read The Luck of the Bodkins back in the 1970s, and remembered it as one of my favorites. I am pleased to report that age has not dimmed, nor custom staled, its infinite variety. This particular novel is especially rich in Wodehouse Girls – those mercurial, impulsive, implacable creatures who rule their men absolutely and are clearly well on their ways to becoming those formidable Aunts who infest Bertie Wooster’s adventures. Lottie Blossom is a prime example, and one of my personal favorites.

Highly, highly recommended. I laughed out loud, at frequent intervals.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Tale of Frithiof the Bold,’ translated by Magnusson and Morris

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Photo credit: Ssolbergj

I usually top a book review with a picture of the book’s cover, but the Kindle version of the book I’m dealing with tonight is a generic free book design. So instead, I present you a picture of the gigantic statue of Frithiof the Bold that overlooks the Sognefjord in Norway. I’ve seen it, but only from a distance, as I cruised in a ship on the fjord. This statue was erected by none other than Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who was a huge fan of Frithiof’s Saga, which I’ll be reviewing tonight. I figured it had been a while since I’d reviewed a saga, and Frithiof’s, though a legendary one, has many points of interest, not least for its reception in fairly modern times. I’ve written about it before, a number of years ago, but I have more to say now. I read The Story of Frithiof the Bold in Eirikr Magnusson’s and William Morris’ classic translation.

Frithiof (or Fridtjof, there are variable spellings) is the son of a minor Viking chieftain. His family lives on one side of the Sognefjord in Norway, while King Beri lives on the other. The king and Frithiof’s father are good friends, but their sons don’t get along. Frithiof is (of course) tall, handsome, strong, and bold – everything a Viking should be. The king’s sons seem capable enough, but Frithiof always outshines them, and they hate him for it. Their sister Ingibiorg, however, likes Frithiof very well, and they make personal vows to each other. At one point, when the king and the brothers are away, Frithiof dallies with Ingibiorg in the god Baldur’s sacred precincts, where such carryings-on are forbidden.

So when King Beri dies, the kings’ sons send Frithiof on a diplomatic mission, to collect tribute in Orkney. While he’s gone, they burn down his farm and marry Ingibiorg off to old King Ring of Ringerike in eastern Norway.

After many adventures, Frithiof comes to serve (under an alias) in King Ring’s court. In that capacity, he becomes the king’s protector. He gets the chance to kill him, but resists the temptation. This leads ultimately to that rarest of elements in a saga – a happy ending.

If you’d lived most anywhere in western Europe in the early to mid-19th Century, you’d have probably been familiar with Frithiof’s Saga. It went viral while most of the sagas were still largely unknown. This was because a Swedish poet, Esaias Tegnér, discovered it and translated it in verse form. His poem was in turn translated into many other languages. Readers responded to its heroic tone, and also to its (apparent) elements of forgiveness and reconciliation. These made it more accessible to the Victorian, Christian reader than such sagas as Njal’s or Egil’s.

My own reading (even in Magnusson’s and Morris’ very Victorian translation) suggests that this interpretation is not entirely correct. Frithiof is admirable, indeed, in not killing the king who had married the girl he loved. But for the saga audience, his virtue lies not so much in forgiveness and finding a peaceful solution (the name Frithiof actually means “peace-thief”), but in his living up to the ethos of his culture, at some personal cost. Frithiof’s enemies are Ingibiorg’s brothers, not King Ring, who has acted honorably throughout. On top of that, he was a good and brave king, deserving of honor. Frithiof has sworn oaths to protect Ring, so protect him he does. His treatment of Ingibiorg’s brothers will be rather different. They’ve treated him treacherously, and can expect little mercy from him.

Reading The Story of Frithiof the Bold from my own perspective, as a lifelong student of Erling Skjalgsson of Sola, I discovered certain parallels to Erling’s own saga, as preserved in Heimskringla. They’re intriguing and (I must admit) a little troubling.

For instance, at one point Frithiof is offered the title of king, but refuses it because none of his ancestors were kings. Erling does that very thing, as you may recall from The Year of the Warrior. (Though Frithiof does accept a kingship at the end of the story.) Also, there’s an objection to Frithiof’s marrying Ingibiorg, because he doesn’t have high enough rank. Similar, again, to Erling’s story. Also, the line from the poem Bjarkamál, “Breast to breast the eagles will claw each other,” is quoted in both tales.

Then we’re told that Frithiof eventually came to rule Hordaland, the homeland of Erling’s own family. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Frithiof was one of Erling’s ancestors. It may well be that Snorri had Frithiof in mind when he wrote about Erling.

The Story of Frithiof the Bold is worth reading, though I’m not a great fan of the antique diction Magnusson and Morris employ. (I have to admit, though, that that gimmick allows them to use actual Old Norse words as archaisms from time to time.) Certainly, as in the 19th Century, it remains one of the most accessible saga tales.

Music

Easter Singing: Welcome, Happy Morning!

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The Choir of Christ Church, Georgetown, Washington, D. C. performing “Welcome, Happy Morning!”

Venantius Honorius Clematianus Fortunatus (530-609) wrote the original text to our Easter hymn today. When I looked for a video of it, I found several recordings of a version that includes the first of these verses before moving into less Christocentric thoughts. The words below come from the Trinity Hymnal and are performed in by The Choir of Christ Church above.

This weekend is what life on earth is about. Praise the Living God who made us and redeemed us for his own glory. Happy Easter, everyone!

1 “Welcome, happy morning!”
age to age shall say:
hell today is vanquished;
heav’n is won today.
Lo! the Dead is living,
God forevermore!
Him, their true Creator,
all his works adore.

2 Maker and Redeemer,
life and health of all,
thou, from heav’n beholding
human nature’s fall,
of the Father’s God-head
true and only Son,
manhood to deliver,
manhood didst put on.

3 Thou, of life the author,
death didst undergo,
tread the path of darkness,
saving strength to show;
come then, True and Faithful,
now fulfil thy word,
’tis thine own third morning;
rise, O buried Lord.

4 Loose the souls long prisoned,
bound with Satan’s chain;
thine that now are fallen
raise to life again;
show thy face in brightness,
bid the nations see;
bring again our daylight;
day returns with thee.

Blogs, Socials, Music, Uncategorized

Denials, the Digital, and the Awesome

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I’m trying to decide if the apostle Peter is a good example of saying the quiet part aloud. When someone notes that an activist or someone has said the quiet part out loud, they mean this person has admitted to principles or goals his people usually leave unsaid or even deny. And Peter is famous for speaking his mind.

On Good Friday, we remember that Peter told Jesus he would die before he denied Christ. “Peter said to him, ‘Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!’ And all the disciples said the same” (Mt. 26:35 ESV). But he did deny the Lord, and I assume the others did too by running away.

When Jesus filled the fishermen’s nets to overflowing, Peter said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk 5:8 ESV), saying immediately what the others may think later, that they were unworthy to stand so close to a holy man. Many years later, Paul had to rebuke Peter for holding Gentile believers to an unholy standard, implying they should maintain Jewish habits in order to be right with Christ (Gal. 2:11-14).

With these and other examples, Peter shows himself to be a great example of a Christian who can’t keep his act together, who lives in continual repentance for not living what he actually believes. In this way, perhaps it’s right to say he says quiet things aloud, and by doing so, he helps us recognize or reject what he says. We can say we do believe that and it’s wrong, or we do believe that and it clashes with other professed beliefs.

Or perhaps we deny that we will ever reject Christ, and then we hear ourselves rejecting him. Don’t let that be your final word. Christ’s work on the cross is enough to flood your entire life and raise you to a new life with him.

As for other things:

Internet: How is the Internet shaping us? How has it formed our habits and changed our values? Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age (via Keith Plummer)

Social Media: “The thought of those in our ministries being drawn away by a stranger through a screen is gut-wrenching.” But influencers don’t have the physical proximity we do. (via Keith Plummer)

Gospel: “The one thing the gospel never does is nothing.”

Sci-fi: Why do some space movies achieve awesome grandeur and others do not? ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and the elusiveness of awe

And as meditation on the grief of Holy Saturday, here’s a Chopin prelude.

Khatia Buniatishvili performs Chopin’s Prelude in E minor Op. 28, no. 4
Fiction, Reviews

‘Shelter from the Storm,’ by Tony Dunbar

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I’m also on the waiting list at St. Olaf’s.”

“Saint who? Who the heck is he?”

“I don’t know. It’s a college in Minnesota. One of the boys I met on my trip to France is going there.”

“Minnesota,” he repeated, incredulous. “Please pass me a scone.”

“I’d like to see more of the world,” she said.

The exchange above is from a conversation between Tubby Dubonnet, hero of Shelter from the Storm, fourth book in Tony Dunbar’s Tubby Dubonnet series, and one of his daughters. It’s typical of the droll quality of the dialogue in these books, though I mainly chose it because it’s a rare reference to Minnesota and a Norwegian-American school.

By the way, it’s “St. Olaf,” not “St. Olaf’s.” A typically Catholic mistake.

Anyway, in Shelter From the Storm, a Texas outlaw named LaRue has hired some local criminals in New Orleans to help him crack a bank safe deposit vault during Mardi Gras, when he figures no one will be paying a lot of attention. (He is correct in this.)

What he doesn’t expect is rain – not just ordinary rain, but a torrential monsoon that cancels parades and floods the streets and knocks out power in the city. When things go wrong, LaRue has a tendency to shoot people. One of the people he shoots happens to be a new legal client of Tubby Dubonnet’s, and Tubby takes that seriously. He can’t call the police because the phones are out and they’re kind of busy rescuing people, but he’ll chase the miscreants on his own. Even if it means neglecting the new girlfriend he’s met.

If that seems a little over the top, well, Tubby can surprise you sometimes. He’s a fairly lazy fellow, but he has spirit. These books are rich in quirky characters – a little too quirky for my taste sometimes, though amusing.

As I’ve said before, I don’t love the Tubby Dubonnet books, but I don’t hate them either. I have a fairly low threshold for quirkiness, and New Orleans isn’t really my kind of town.

I must also complain that Shelter from the Storm ended with a sort of a cliff-hanger, which is an offense in my code.

But the books are popular, so what do I know?

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Only Death That Matters,’ by Colin Conway

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I’ve skipped a few episodes in Colin Conway’s excellent The 509 series of police procedurals. That was because The Only Death That Matters became available free. But they’re stand-alones, so it was all right. I enjoyed this book just as much as its predecessors.

Ray Christy is a police volunteer. He’s 72 and an army vet. Every day he visits his wife, who’s in a care facility for memory loss. His only son became a cop and died in the line of duty; Ray volunteered to help the Spokane police in an effort to understand his son’s commitment. He doesn’t carry a badge or a gun; he does routine work to take pressure off the real cops. It fills his time and gives his days a purpose.

One day he’s called to pick up a “found” item, a woman’s wallet found in a parking lot. On a whim, he decides to take it back to the owner, at the address on the ID. But when he gets there, he learns the woman is dead, drowned in a bathtub. This is a group home for the elderly, and the owner treats him rudely. Surprisingly, that owner is a cop.

Ray is immediately suspicious. He starts doing research on the man and his business dealings. And then everything blows up…

The 509 series, set in eastern Washington state, is a top-rank mystery series, in this reader’s view. Emphasis is heavily on character. The people in the story are faceted and relatable; I wanted to see how things worked out for them. Detectives Quinn and Burkett are here again, welcome like old friends.

The Only Death That Matters is highly recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Bedroom Window Murder,’ by Peter Zander-Howell

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The other day I reviewed Machinations of a Murderer, by Peter Zander-Howell, a straight-up serious English police procedural mystery set in the 1940s. I enjoyed it immensely, and straightaway bought the first book in the series, The Bedroom Window Murder.

We meet our hero, Inspector Philip Bryce, as he drives to a country house in Hampshire along with his new partner, Sergeant Haig. In the classic tradition of British fiction, these two Scotland Yard detectives have been dispatched from London to investigate a baffling murder out of town. The justification for this official trip (which I understand never happens in real life), is that the victim, Sir Francis Sherwood, was a friend of their boss.

Sir Francis was found dead at his bedroom window, shot in the head by a .22 bullet. The problem that baffles the police is that there seems to be no one in the world – nobody – who hated Sir Francis. He was famously good to his employees, and as a magistrate he was notoriously lenient in sentencing. Everyone who knew him appears genuinely distraught at his death. A rifle found abandoned on the lawn appears to be the murder weapon, but to whom did it belong?

Solving that problem will involve a process of elimination – excluding the impossible, though (as Bryce emphasizes) identifying the impossible is often harder than Sherlock Holmes stories suggest. It will also give Inspector Bryce the opportunity to meet an attractive, available woman – who is, alas, also a suspect. The final resolution presented a moral problem for this reader, but a twist at the end made even that ambiguous.

I didn’t enjoy The Bedroom Window Murder quite as much as the Machinations book, but that’s because this is a classic country house mystery, and lacks the originality of MoaM. But it’s very good of its kind. It plays no modernist games and is faithful to its time and place.

For me, one educational benefit of this book was learning about a landscaping feature called a “ha-ha,” of which I’d never heard before. It’s a wall behind a recess in the earth, intended to block entry to a flower garden without cutting off the view.

A very good book. I like this series.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Cost of Deceit,’ by H. Mitchell Caldwell

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A little while back I reviewed Cost of Arrogance, by H. Mitchell Caldwell. I found that novel delightful. It was a legal thriller composed with the authority of actual courtroom experience. Highly educational, and well-written to boot.

Could author Caldwell keep that standard up for a second novel, Cost of Deceit? We shall see.

Our hero, Jake Clearwater, teaches courtroom law at a small California university. Before that he was a successful prosecuting attorney. In the last book he was enticed out of the classroom to work the other side of the street – to defend a client on death row.

Now he gets an invitation to do a prosecution again. Lieutenant Cort, a sheriff’s officer, has been tried once already for the murder of his wife. He is known to be angry and brutal, and confesses to striking his wife at least once. According to the wife’s sister, he explicitly threatened her life. Then she disappeared, and no one has heard from her since. The prosecutors can work out a timeline for how Cort could have killed her. No one questions his capacity to kill her. But no body has been found. It’s notoriously difficult to get a conviction in a murder case in the absence of a corpse, so there was a hung jury. The county has decided to hold another trial, and they want Jake to prosecute. It will be during summer break, so he has time, and he can’t resist the challenge. Also, he watched the trial closely, and he wants to see this guy put away.

Over the course of the trial, Jake will come to care very much about the victim’s family, especially her distraught sister, but even about the hapless stripper Cort wants to use as an alibi. Their lives may be in danger if a way can’t be found to get this very dangerous man out of circulation.

I wish I could say Cost of Deceit was as good as the first book. But alas, no.

The first book did an excellent job of incorporating legal information into a well-realized story. Cost of Deceit is less successful. From time to time I got the feeling I was in the middle of one of those industrial training films, where people ask rote questions in such a way that the instructor can give the right answers at the proper place in the lesson plan. The prose was awkward in places too, this time out.

On the plus side, I was anticipating a big, overblown cinematic finale, but the climax was pretty realistic. I appreciated that.

Informational, but written with less care than the last book. Cautions for the usual stuff.

Reviews

Netflix review: ‘War Sailor’

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Another film project on which I worked as a script translator is now available in the US. War Sailor, a Norwegian film released last year (the most expensive movie ever made in Norway, I’m informed), has been expanded into a three-part miniseries for Netflix. I binged it last night and wish to recommend it to you.

After an opening set in Singapore after World War II, we go back to 1939 and observe our two main characters, Alfred (“Freddie”) and Sigbjørn (“Wally”). Freddie is a hard-working family man in Bergen, and Wally is his bachelor friend. Jobs are hard to find, and Wally encourages Freddie to join him in signing on to a merchant ship. Freddie’s wife Cecilia is concerned about the danger, as the war is going on, but Wally reassures her that they’re only going to New York. As both Norway and the US are neutral there’s minimal danger, he reasons. Anyway, he promises to keep Freddie safe.

By the time they reach New York, Germany has invaded and Norway is at war. The Norwegian government has nationalized the country’s merchant shipping (one of their major industries) and put it all at the disposal of the allies for carrying war munitions and supplies. The sailors are suddenly de facto members of the Navy (albeit unarmed), without the privilege of resigning.

What follows is a season in Hell. German U-boats are taking a desperate toll on the Norwegian ships (fully half of them were sunk over the course of the war) and casualties are high. Freddie takes an underaged sailor under his wing as a sort of surrogate son, and gives up a chance to escape from the service in order to protect the young man. When their ship is torpedoed, Freddie and Wally find themselves sharing a raft with a dying man and a madman.

Meanwhile, Freddie’s family at home is struggling to make ends meet, is worried sick about him, and is facing dangers of their own from Allied bombers. It all culminates in one of those bureaucratic snafus that start in mixed signals and end in ravaged lives.

It’s tempting to call the story a tragedy, but in fact it’s better described as aggravated irony. In the world of this war, virtue is never rewarded, and no good deed goes unpunished.

Brilliantly filmed, directed, and acted, War Sailor is not light entertainment. Be prepared for strong language, horrific violence, and dark themes. Not for the kids, but well worth watching for adults.

Music

Sunday Singing: Unto My Lord Jehovah Said

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“Unto my Lord Jehovah said” piano accompaniment of the Elbing tune

This arrangement of Psalm 110 first appeared in the Irish Psalter of 1898. It’s paired with the Elbing tune in the Trinity Hymnal, which I’ve shared above, but other hymnals arrange this text with at least two more tunes.

I offer it here today in that strange Palm Sunday attitude of singing praise to Christ the King, even as the Jerusalem crowds shouted Hosanna in ignorance. They didn’t know the irony of their words. They wanted Jesus of Nazareth to be a political king who would overthrown Rome, but he was the king of kings whose kingdom was not of this world.

1 Unto my Lord Jehovah said:
At my right hand I throne thee,
till, at thy feet in triumph laid,
thy foes their ruler own thee.
From Zion hill the Lord shall send
thy scepter, till before thee bend
the knees of proud rebellion.

2 Thy saints, to greet thy day of might,
in holy raiment muster;
as dewdrops in the morning light
thy youths around thee cluster.
The Lord hath sworn and made decree,
thou, like Melchizedek, shalt be
a kingly priest for ever.

3 The Lord at thy right hand shall bring
on rulers desolation;
the Lord shall smite each heathen king,
and judge each rebel nation.
He, swiftly marching in his wrath,
shall quaff the brook upon his path,
and lift his head in glory.

As an alternative, let me also share this 9th century French hymn, “Gloria, laus et honor,” performed by Harpa Dei.