Snippet Three, Troll Valley

They were still discussing it around the wash table outside the mud porch when we got to the house. Bestefar was dipping water from a pail into the washbasin, and as he rolled up his sleeves, loosened his shirt and started to scrub the dirt off he said, “Peter, I think Otto’s got a point. The problem with you is you ain’t got brains enough to know when you’re smart.”

Papa folded his arms and twisted his mouth. “You know how many men try that sort of thing every year and lose their shirts?”

“Ja, some of them fail. But none of the ones who don’t try, succeed,” said Bestefar, lathering his arms with a cake of soap. His hands were red-brown as an Indian’s to the wrist, the arms paint-white from there on up. “Look at me. If I hadn’t been willing to take a chance, I’d still be fishing sild in Norway.”

“You tell him, Ole,” said Otto. Continue reading Snippet Three, Troll Valley

The dance of the straw men

If you’re a social conservative, chances are you’ve had a conversation something like this:

Conservative: “But if we accept homosexual behavior as normal, how do we retain other traditional taboos, like the one against incest?”

Liberal: “That’s just a straw man. Nobody’s going to advocate incest.”

Now, read this, from Tauriq Moosa, tutor in ethics, bioethics and critical thinking at the University of Cape Town, South Africa (courtesy of Dale Nelson):

Thirdly, and oddly, people exclaim [incest is] “just” repugnant. We will examine this more closer later. Nonetheless, why should the sexual activities of two consenting adults concern us? This is the same question we can ask those who are ‘against’ homosexuality (which is like being against having blue eyes). It is none of our business what two consenting adults wish to do (as long as no one else is harmed/involved without consent).

Repugnance helped many things we now consider wrong to continue in the past, such racial and sexual inequality. We can’t rely on repugnance to justify our social policies, since our repugnance is simply that: our own. Besides which, people are repulsed by different things – and we cannot leave it up to the whims of our emotions to implement policies and laws which could, unnecessarily, cause suffering to other people, as is the case with gay people, women, and indeed the current brother-and-sister couple.

Pretty lively for a straw man, isn’t it?

Liberals—I want to share a serious word with you, in honesty and without malice. If you have any principles—any at all—I promise you that, if you continue on the Left, you will eventually either have to give them up or move to the Right. Because liberalism is not a position. It is a process. That process evolves continually. Nothing is out of bounds for it, given enough time. That’s why so many ‘60s radicals are Reagan Republicans now.

For years, people have been telling me (to take another example) that there’s nothing wrong with homosexual behavior because homosexuals are born that way (I’m still not convinced of that, but it’s beside the point for this discussion). The argument is, “If it’s inborn, it’s natural and right.” Christian liberals say it must be God’s will.

“Why would anyone choose to be gay?” the liberal says. “It’s penalized in our culture. So it must be inborn, and the gays have no choice in the matter.”

Bear that argument in mind when you read this, from Italy’s La Stampa.

A study conducted by neuroscientists at Turin University and researchers at the department of neurological science of the University of Milan asserts that pedophilia is caused by a defective growth factor called pleiotropic protein Progranulin (PGRN). The results were published in the journal Biological Psychiatry and presented during a recent convention of the Neurological Italian Society in Turin.

Now, if this theory is true, explain to me how the previously stated arguments for homosexuality don’t apply just as well to pedophilia.

And no, “You’re a Nazi,” does not count as a valid argument.

Missed it by THAT much.

Well, once again Time Magazine has passed me over for Person of the Year. Instead they chose somebody called “The Protester.”

I protest.

In other news, I was floored by this article from Psychology Today (tip: Conservative Grapevine). In it, psychologists Allan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa come right out and say a number of things we’ve all known all the time, but nobody in the public eye has had the nerve to say out loud. Like, gentlemen prefer blondes. And most suicide bombers are Muslims. And it isn’t sexism that leads to sexual harrassment in the workplace.

Human behavior is a product both of our innate human nature and of our individual experience and environment. In this article, however, we emphasize biological influences on human behavior, because most social scientists explain human behavior as if evolution stops at the neck and as if our behavior is a product almost entirely of environment and socialization. In contrast, evolutionary psychologists see human nature as a collection of psychological adaptations that often operate beneath conscious thinking to solve problems of survival and reproduction by predisposing us to think or feel in certain ways. Our preference for sweets and fats is an evolved psychological mechanism. We do not consciously choose to like sweets and fats; they just taste good to us.

The authors operate from an evolutionary point of view, but in general a Christian can accept all these statements, it seems to me, on the basis of our belief in original sin.

Making Money Within Book Culture

I can’t say I fully understand this point of view, but it does seem respectable. Ron Hogan talks about making money from your book reviews and promotions in light of the paid promotions done through the #FridayReads hashtag on Twitter. I suppose it’s all about the appearance of promoting something because a publisher asked you to, not because you actually like it, but if a publisher asks you to potentially promote something you would likely not have discovered on your own and that you do, in fact, like, the problem seems only one of appearance.

Maybe I’m just not a member of the anti-commercial club.

"And suddenly that name will never be the same to me"



“The Annunciation,” by Fra Angelico

My recent Norwegian visitor gifted me with a book called Hva Er et Navn? (What’s In a Name? more or less), about customs and fashions of name-giving through Norwegian history.

In the section on biblical names, the author (Ivar Utne) discusses the origins of the name “Mary” (Maria in Norwegian). I hadn’t been aware there’s so much uncertainty about its meaning. Here’s the relevant section, as translated by me.

No one knows for certain where the name Maria originated. For that reason, several interpretations exist. We know for certain that the name had different forms in Palestine around the time of Jesus’ birth. It was Mariam in Aramaic and Miriam in Hebrew, which were the two languages the Jews used. The New Testament was written in Greek. There the name became Maria, because the Greeks thought “m” an ending that did not go with Mariam.

The trail leads further back. In the Old Testament, written in Hebrew, we find many women named Miriam. The first was the sister of Moses and Aaron, of whom we read in the story of the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt to Palestine. The names of all three may be Egyptian, as they came from Egypt. The Egyptian meaning of Miriam is “beloved.”

Other scholars contend that Miriam comes from Hebrew and means either “rebel” or “a drop in the sea.” This is because there are Hebrew words with those meanings which sound like Miriam. The “drop” explanation has more recently become “star of the sea” in some naming books, but that explanation is accepted by few scholars.

There are numerous other explanations. In comprehensive naming lists, Maria, for example, is translated “sturdy and strong,” which might be rendered “big and strong.” “Visionary” and “wife” are also to be found among the interpretations.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke


To young men of a studious turn of mind, who did not desire to go into the Church or the Law, magic was very appealing, particularly since Strange had triumphed on the battlefields of Europe. It is, after all, many centuries since clergymen distinguished themselves on the field of war, and lawyers never have.

It is my settled custom to delay discovering great novels until everybody else has already praised the life out of them. And so it is with Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. A marvelous, original conception carried off with what looks like effortless grace, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is a sprawling, lengthy epic in the heroic fantasy vein, but set in early 19th Century England and narrated in a style reminiscent of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen (and probably other Victorian authors of whom I’m ignorant. I was always a little weak on my 19th Century English fiction). If you’re looking for headlong, fast-paced adventure, this is not the book for you. This is a leisurely book, whose pleasures are subtle ones. I found it totally delightful.

(I might also add that I forgot the author’s name, and could not recall throughout my reading whether the author was a man or a woman. Coming from me, that’s high praise.) Continue reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

Positive feedback

It took a full week for me to find out about it, and it was Calvin Gordon Dodge who finally brought it to my attention, but the immortal Andrew Klavan linked to my review of Agnes Mallory on his web site here.

Lars Walker is a fantasy novelist who, I’ve noticed, occasionally leaves literate and intelligent comments here and at my PJ Media blog. Now, at the C.S. Lewis inspired journal Touchstone Magazine, he gives a lovely review to my novel Agnes Mallory, which was just recently released as an e-book by Otto Penzler’s MysteriousPress.com.

Our Daily Bread, by Lauren B. Davis

Albert Erskine, 21, is “mountain,” which distinguishes him and his clan (all more or less family) from the “townies” of Gideon. They keep to themselves, and they don’t spill their secrets to anyone. Life, as Albert describes it, is a river of sewage; you have to swim through it the best you can and keep your mouth shut. He lives near the top of North Mountain, which has gorgeous views of the sunrise and sunset almost every day, but the Erskines aren’t a nature-loving, life-affirming clan. They are horrible perverts who abuse themselves and their children in every way. Albert has tried to separate himself from his uncles (who have been making moonshine for years, but are branching into methamphetamines now), his grandparents and mother, but he can’t leave. He doesn’t want to abandon the children, ages 2-15, who can only dodge and hide from the adults to survive.

Tom Evans is a father who lives in town and loves his wife dearly but wonders if she really loves him. He doesn’t understand what’s bothering his son, Bobby, but then who can understand a 15 year old? Bobby’s distant, doesn’t seem to fit in—kind of like his wife actually. Maybe an anniversary trip, a special meal on the day they returned to Gideon as a couple, will spark her interest again. And maybe after a few years, they’ll grow out of their current problems.

Continue reading Our Daily Bread, by Lauren B. Davis

Snippet Two, Troll Valley

CHAPTER I THRESHING

It really was my fault. There’s no getting away from that.

It started during the threshing.

I remember I was angry till I saw the red caps. Then I was frightened. As always.

Regular people, my brother Fred had explained to me recently, laughing, do not see red Norwegian caps (luer) with long tails and tassels dancing in the grass whenever they lose their tempers. All around me the caps rushed and gamboled in my sight, like flaming fox tails among the fields. I never saw the folk who wore those caps, nor wished to. They danced, it seemed, just underground, moving through the earth like fish in water.

So I’d learned to stop and take a few deep breaths whenever I got angry. The red caps usually went away then.

“Chris! Auggie! Fred! You think those shovels were made for leaning on?” Continue reading Snippet Two, Troll Valley