Morten Lauridsen, a Great Living Composer

Terry Teachout writes about a composer whom Dana Gioia says: “one of the few living composers whom I would call great.”

Says Mr. Lauridsen: “There are too many things out there that are away from goodness. We need to focus on those things that ennoble us, that enrich us.” The musical language in which he embodies this simple belief is conservative in the best and most creative sense of the word. His sacred music is unabashedly, even fearlessly tonal, and his chiming harmonies serve as underpinning for gently swaying melodic lines that leave no doubt of his love for medieval plainchant. Nothing about his music is “experimental”: It is direct, heartfelt and as sweetly austere as the luminous sound of church bells at night.

What the Night Knows, by Dean Koontz

I’m a fan of Dean Koontz, so when I say that I wasn’t entirely pleased with What the Night Knows, you must understand that I’m not saying it was a bad read, or that it bored me. It’s a professionally constructed story, with appealing characters and gripping terror. But there were things that disappointed me about it.

As in so many Koontz stories, the action is sparked by a bigger-than-life villain. This one is Alton Turner Blackwood, a gigantic, deformed sexual sadist who has an extra advantage—he’s dead. He can possess inanimate objects or people, and he uses them to commit horrific sex murders against entire families. He especially craves young, innocent females.

Years ago police detective John Calvino, then a teenaged boy, walked in on Blackwood just after he had murdered Calvino’s family. Calvino shot him to death. But somehow Blackwood’s evil spirit endures, and he is determined to recreate his last string of murders, on precisely the same timetable, finishing up with Calvino and his wife and three children. Continue reading What the Night Knows, by Dean Koontz

Apparently I have hidden depths

Our friend Grim at the Grim’s Hall blog has the honor of posting the first blog review of Troll Valley. And what he has to say about it is extremely intriguing:

There is a wider lesson to her example.  A family home is like a broader human community in that it has rules that establish a way of life, and under that way of life a community is possible.  We see in the early chapters how the traditions of Norwegian families at Yuletide sustained a broad community through hard work.  It is at that feast that the mother first uses her power to force a change in the rules, in her interest and against the interests of others.  It is by forcing continual alterations of the rules of life that she destroys the community within the house, so that finally no one can live with her at all.

Each of these rules is meant to represent moral progress, but each of them destroys the living community in which human kindness is possible.  

Grim sees the book as a drama of modern ideas of societal reform in conflict with the old traditions, and traditional relationships, that actually bind society together.

I find this fascinating, because I honestly didn’t have that in mind when I wrote. I was thinking of politics vs. religion, not politics vs. tradition. But now that he mentions it, I can see that the lesson is there. What I did was try to represent factually the kind of changes that were going on in the first couple decades of the 20th Century, and the “lesson” grew kind of organically from the events.

This all pleases me immensely. I like being smarter than I intended.

Different Magic

Aaron Armstrong asks, “Why are we okay with allowing our kids to watch The Chronicles of Narnia, but not okay with The Princess and the Frog? I have not seen The Princess and the Frog, but my little family did in the theater for a birthday party. My sweet wife said she was surprised at how evil the bad guy was, not like other Disney villains. As Aaron points out, Dr. Facilier isn’t a funny, magically bad man. He uses tarot cards and voodoo and has demons as sidekicks. It’s too close the real evil, meaning the occult, for a kids movie.

Of course, on the other hand, I can understand how secular writers would look at all magical stuff, regardless the labels, as fantasy and fair game.

Link sausage, Jan. 18, 2012

Anthony Esolen has written one of the best articles I’ve read in a long time about culture in general, and art in particular, for Crisis Magazine. What Makes Norman Rockwell Possible?

And that sense of wonder, especially at what is but small or homely or unregarded, is everywhere to be found in Rockwell’s paintings. For the Christian world, properly understood, is the only real haven for man, because in it we learn not only that man is made in the image of God, but that God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son, born of a virgin and laid in a manger. Every man we meet bears within himself the mysteries of Christmas, and Good Friday, and Easter, whether he is aware of it or not, and we find these mysteries most clearly manifest in the meek and the lowly.

On some level I believe that Norman Rockwell understood this. Some critics try to shore up his reputation by pointing to the “serious” political paintings he executed: the small black girl escorted to school in the midst of National Guardsmen, or the man standing up in a town meeting to exercise his freedom of speech. I don’t wish to deny the success of those works. I think they are very good. But Rockwell’s heart lay elsewhere.

Today is the day Wikipedia blacked itself out to protest the SOPA legislation. I am not taking a strong line on the subject, but I believe those who say it’s a bad law, destructive of freedom (most of them seem to be, these days). On the other hand, I’m a copyright holder myself, and favor intellectual property rights in general. As I believe many people protesting SOPA are.

Somebody on Facebook linked to a Twitter discussion where people were panicking–“THEY SHUT WIKIPEDIA DOWN? HOW WILL WE LIVE?” “HOW CAN THE GOVERNMENT DO THAT?”

I suppose these people’s problem is that Wikipedia is their only source of information about the world, and they couldn’t check the news on Wikipedia.

Why Read Stuff? I Mean, For Real?

Victor Davis Hanson writes on reading:

But you object that at least our current economy of expression cuts out wasted words and clauses, a sort of slimmed-down, electronic communication? Perhaps, but it also turns almost everything into instant bland hot cereal, as if we should gulp down oatmeal at every meal and survive well enough without the bother of salad, main course, and dessert. Each day our vocabulary shrinks, our thought patterns stagnate — if they are not renewed through fresh literature or intelligent conversation. Unfortunately these days, those who read are few and silent; those who don’t, numerous and heard. In this drought, Dante’s Inferno and William Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico provide needed storms of new words, complex syntax, and fresh ideas.

(via Books, Inq.)

In response, D.G. Myers writes about reading fiction specifically, saying it makes a man full. Not his stomach, we’re talking about making the man himself full. Get a snack if you’re hungry. (via Dave Lull)

Congress Should Stick to Raising Taxes

Because apparently it can’t do anything else well. Today, Wikipedia and other sites and web personalities are closing their windows for a while in protest of The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), misguided efforts by our congressmen to hod taxpayers over a barrel. I’m sorry. That’s what they are doing with federal spending and raising the U.S. debt ceiling. What they are going here is an effort to stop the scams and piracy we all enjoy online. Just the other day, I laughed myself into a seizure because my folks sent their savings to a Nigerian who needed to get out of a hotel bill he mistakenly run up while a working on his uncle’s million-dollar estate. Now, they’ll be living with us. Too funny.

Congress has some bills up to deal with this touchy bit of humor, but Paul Rosenzweig of The Heritage Foundation says that while they are asking the right questions, their answers “would make the Internet generally less secure for everyone.” As he describes the proposed legislation, Congress would be censoring select parts of the Internet and undermine any future freedom of speech arguments which could arise while making real Internet security efforts more difficult to implement.

Manalive, by G. K. Chesterton


When men are weary they fall into anarchy; but while they are gay and vigorous they invariably make rules. This, which is true of all the churches and republics of history, is also true of the most trivial parlour game or the most unsophisticated meadow romp.

We are never free until some institution frees us; and liberty cannot exist till it is declared by authority….

This may be the most delightful of all G. K. Chesterton’s fictional romps. Many love The Man Who Was Thursday, but Manalive is perhaps the distillation of the author’s philosophy of life; a comedy that makes his most serious point.

The central character of Manalive is Innocent Smith, a huge but oddly graceful gentleman who leaps into a suburban London garden one day, chasing his hat in the wind. He is not at all irritated by having his hat blown away; he declares to the people present that hat chasing is one of his favorite sports. He then proceeds to shoot a physician’s hat off with a pistol, an action which sparks the story’s odd action.

Soon three young men have proposed to three young women, and had their proposals accepted. Then authorities come to take Innocent Smith away. He is, according to information received, an attempted murderer, a burglar, and a bigamist, believed to be dangerously insane. Through one of those odd plot contrivances that could only happen in a Chesterton story, a hearing on his sanity is held in that very house. Evidence against Smith is heard, and explanations given.

Without giving away the details, the whole point is that Smith is a man who has discovered how wonderful life is, and is determined to make himself forever aware of the wonder of living through finding new ways rediscover its beauty. He seems insane because he’s eminently sane. He looks like a murderer because he imparts life wherever he goes. He is a walking paradox, Chesterton’s perfect brain-child.

If you’re looking for realistic fiction, this is not the book for you. Chesterton, as is his wont, stretches probability as wide as Innocent Smith’s waistcoat. He plays with ideas, plays with his characters, and plays with the reader. He is endearing and maddening—just like his main character.

Recommended without reservation.

The Skin Map, by Stephen R. Lawhead

Stephen Lawhead has never been a conventional Christian author, or even a conventional fantasy author. He writes by his own rules. Sometimes I like what he does, sometimes not so much. But all in all I was pleased with his novel The Skin Map, and look forward to the continuation of the series.

The main character is a generally unremarkable young man, Kit Livingston, who lives in contemporary London. One day he gets lost and wanders into an alley, where he meets a man who claims to be his great-grandfather, Cosimo Livingston. Cosimo claims that there are invisible paths and portals (“ley lines”) throughout the world, by which knowledgeable travelers may travel through time, space, and dimension.

Kit tries to explain to his girlfriend Wilhelmina why he missed their date. To prove his story to her, he takes her back to that alley and successfully makes a jump to the historical past—17th Century London. But he gets separated from Wilhelmina, who finds herself (we learn later) in Bohemia at about the same time. (One of the pleasures of this book is the Wilhelmina subplot, in which an unhappy 21st Century feminist finds personal fulfillment as a businesswoman in 17th Century Prague.)

Kit finds Cosimo, who agrees it’s important to try to locate Wilhelmina and send her home. But to do that they need a map. There is only one map of the ley lines, the “Skin Map,” a piece of parchment made from the tattooed skin of the first explorer to chart the space-and-time-byways. (He had the map made on his own torso so that he could never lose it.) That map has been cut into several pieces, and the single piece Cosimo and his friend Sir Henry Fayth possessed has been stolen. Before long they learn they have more serious problems than the disappearance of Wilhelmina. A very dangerous and resourceful enemy is doing his best to assemble the Skin Map for his own megalomaniac purposes, and he will stint at no crime to get what he wants.

I found The Skin Map a very engaging fantasy entertainment, suitable for teens and older. Good values are taught, and Christianity is presented in a serious, positive light. I think Stephen Lawhead was wise to move away from medieval fantasy, at least for a while. He seems to have grown uncomfortable with the kind of sword-and-armor violence that such stories demand, and this idiosyncratic adventure gives him scope for other kinds of action. Recommended.