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Drilling for Da Vinci

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Some people think there’s a Da Vinci painting on the other side of a fresco-laden wall in Florence. They want to drill through the fresco to get to it. Others want to preserve the fresco. “Vasari [who painted The Battle of Marciano in Val di Chiana in 1563] knew how to remove works by other people [meaning Da Vinci’s abandoned work on the same wall] while keeping them intact. What sense would there have been sealing up the Da Vinci, unless you get into childish Dan Brown logic?”

Ah, Mr. Brown. You have sealed your name in history, haven’t you?

Reviews

Film review: "Hugo"

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I made a point of catching Martin Scorsese’s change-of-pace movie, Hugo, because it was highly praised, both by film critic Michael Medved, and our friend Anthony Sacramone of Strange Herring. My own response is ambivalent. This is a brilliant, fascinating, beautiful movie, suitable for all ages. Nevertheless, it hasn’t done very good business (I saw it in a theater almost empty), and that doesn’t actually surprise me much. As Sacramone notes, “…it’s a kids’ film for adults.” I don’t think actual kids will love it (that may not be a bad thing either, as I’ll explain below). But adults, especially ones who love cinema, will embrace it once they discover it. I expect cult status on DVD is in its future.

The titular hero is Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), an orphan boy who lives in the Paris railroad station. He was brought there to live by his drunkard uncle, who took care of the station clocks. After teaching Hugo to do the job, the man disappeared. Hugo has been maintaining the clocks on his own ever since, afraid of apprehension by the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen in an interesting performance), who takes perverse delight in sending orphans to an institution.

Hugo lives off pilfered food, and also steals small mechanical parts, especially from Georges (Ben Kingsley), an old man who runs a toy shop in the station. He wants the parts for his ongoing project of repairing an automaton (a moving clockwork human figure), his only inheritance from his father. The two of them had been repairing it when his father died, and Hugo believes that if he can get it working, it will somehow deliver a message from his father. Continue reading Film review: "Hugo" →

Authors, Writing

Writing Advice, Pointers, Tid-Bits, and Junk

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“I like to say there are three things that are required for success as a writer: talent, luck, discipline. … [Discipline] is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.” —Michael Chabon

More advice like this at Writer’s Digest.

Bookselling, Fiction

Snippet One, Troll Valley

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[To whet your appetite for my new novel, which I hope (but can’t promise) to have out by Christmas, here’s a snippet. I’ll post them here from time to time until the book is released. Every Friday, and possibly more if I’m feeling generous. lw]

PROLOGUE:

THE PRESENT.

Shane Anderson woke up in a room he didn’t recognize. He had no idea where he was, and no idea who was with him.

This was not unusual for him.

Never before, however, had he awakened in an attic room (he could tell by the slanted ceiling) in what was clearly a very old house, with no company but a very big Native American in a gray sweat suit, sitting in an armchair and reading a Bible.

“Where am I?” Shane asked. The bed he lay in didn’t go with the room, which had old-fashioned figured wallpaper and carved woodwork around the doors and windows. It was a modern adjustable bed, with some kind of control panel on a side rail. A hospital bed.

The Native American looked up from his reading and said, “You’re home. Or it will be your home someday. At least legally. If you don’t O. D. or break your neck.”

“The big house in Epsom? What the—ʺ

“No profanity, son. I have your mother’s instructions to wash your mouth out with soap if you speak profanities or curse. It’s one of the things in your life she’s particularly concerned about.” Continue reading Snippet One, Troll Valley →

Blogs, Socials

It happened on my watch

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Another milestone tonight. Not a personal one, but a cultural one, though I know I’m way behind the curve. Which is equally newsworthy with my decision not to wear spandex.

I’d been hearing for some time that the wristwatch is dead. Everybody carries a cell phone now, and all the cell phones have built in time readouts, so who needs to take the trouble of strapping a watch on?

These are the things that make us sigh (usually silently) as we age. No great principle hangs on it. No commandment of God is violated when we cast the wristwatch onto the ash heap of history. Probably no one alive today remembers when the wristwatch superseded the pocket watch. It started during World War I (or so I’m given to understand; I wasn’t there), when soldiers in the trenches discovered it was convenient to strap their pocket watches onto their wrists. Up till then wristwatches were considered effeminate, items of jewelry suitable for ladies. But those soldiers marching home with wristwatches changed that. No doubt the older men sighed silently, like me, as they saw the fashion change. Now the pocket watch is back, in the form of the cell phone. I hope watch chains come back, too. That would be a measure of consolation.

Anyway, this all came home to me tonight because I destroyed my old wristwatch, trying to reconcile the calendar function. You know how a calendar watch thinks every month has 31 days, and you have to jump the date at the end of September, April, June, and November, but not the day of the week? I was sure I’d figured out how to do it easily the last time I did the job, but I couldn’t make it work this time, and in my wrath I pulled the whole stem out. My great power overcame my great responsibility. Continue reading It happened on my watch →

Religion

One last "Elmer" post

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Sorry I didn’t post anything for Thanksgiving (or Lewis’s birthday, come to think of it; but I did post Lewis quotes on Facebook all day). Wanted to get the two book reviews up, and… well, I’ve been melancholy.

It has to do with the death of my friend “Elmer,” I guess, about which I wrote below. Intimations of mortality. Who’s that bell tolling for again? I’ve never had an actual friend die before. I’ve had lots of classmates die (I have an idea, though I’ve never done the math, that my high school class has had an unusually high death rate, statistically). But nobody I would include in the small group of “friends” has ever died before. This is yet another validation of my lifelong policy of keeping my circle of friends small, so that funeral attendance will be infrequent and Christmas card lists short.

They held a funeral for Elmer down in Kenyon, on Saturday (correction: Friday). I was concerned that, since Jewish law requires quick burial, and Elmer was part of a Messianic synagogue, somebody had disregarded his own wishes,and completely cut out the congregation to which he belonged. But there were many members of the synagogue there, and his rabbi spoke at length.

And it was fascinating. Elmer’s nephew told a number of stories about him, and we all laughed without embarrassment. Because Elmer was never offended, at least by jokes about himself. He had once brought a vegetarian dish to a family meal, and his nephew said it looked like “pig scours” (that’s a term farmers know, but probably unfamiliar to you. I think you’re happier not knowing, especially if you just ate). Elmer thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Continue reading One last "Elmer" post →

Fiction, Reviews

Agnes Mallory, by Andrew Klavan

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‘Look,’ she said wearily from the stairs. I was leaning against the stove, studying her stupid sneakers. My arms crossed, my soul leaden with sorrow. ‘I just don’t want to approach you too fast. I know you don’t like journalists. I saw you on TV: slamming the door? That’s why I was watching…’

‘Oh, admit it: you were being mysterious and romantic.’
‘Jesus!’ One of her little sneaks gave a little stomp. ‘You sound just like my father.’
Fortunately, this arrow went directly through my heart and came out the other side, so there was no need to have it surgically removed, which can be expensive….
Back in 1985, the young author author Andrew Klavan had a novel published in England which didn’t find a home in the U.S. This novel is Agnes Mallory, which is now, thankfully, available in a Kindle edition from Mysterious Press.
The narrator of the story is Harry Bernard. Harry lives in a secluded cabin, outside the New York suburb of Westchester. He is a recluse, a broken man, a disbarred lawyer who has left his family behind.
He wants nothing to do with the young woman who follows him home one evening, in the rain. Klavan introduces her in such a way that the reader isn’t sure at first whether she’s real or a ghost. And that’s appropriate, since this is a kind of a ghost story—but the ghosts are the memories we carry with us and the dreams we’ve buried in the cellar. Continue reading Agnes Mallory, by Andrew Klavan →

Authors

C.S. Lewis Day

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On this day in 1898, Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, making our favorite Oxford don more Irish than English (wait, is Tolkien our favorite or Lewis?). Despite being productive mostly with my cough, I put several C.S. Lewis facts on our BwB Twitter feed in honor of the day.

  1. On this day in 1898, C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland. What follows today will be #CSLewis facts.
  2. A good starting point for Lewis’ birthday is following @CSLewisDaily 414,861 followers can’t be wrong. (n.s.)
  3. My #CSLewis facts today come from Colin Duriez’ biographical book ow.ly/7IDKt
  4. Lewis met Owen Barfield, one of his best friends, first in 1919 at university. Learn more about Barfield ow.ly/7IDue #CSLewis
  5. G. MacDonald’s “Phantastes” is a very influential book in Lewis’ life. He first found it on March 4 at a train station. #CSLewis facts
  6. One of #CSLewis poems hangs on a wall on Addison’s Walk, Oxford. ow.ly/7IKkU
  7. When his father learned #CSLewis had been elected Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, he cried for joy.
  8. Oxford, Magdalen College, The Kilns, and The Eagle and Child #CSLewis facts ow.ly/7IJGi
  9. #CSLewis first met JRR Tolkien during his first year at Magdalen, 1926. They become life-long friends.
  10. Tolkien described the Inklings as “undertermined, unelected circle of friends who gathered around #CSLewis”
  11. #CSLewis Tutor Kirkpatrick said of 17yo Jack, “He has read more classics than any boy I ever had or indeed…I ever heard of.”
  12. #CSLewis was an great literary critic. He wrote essays on Bunyan, Austen, Shelley and topics such as myth, story, lingustics, and metaphor.
  13. You’ve heard of The Eagle and Child, but #CSLewis “local” pub, that closest to his home, The Kilns, is The Six Bells ow.ly/7IWYE
  14. #CSLewis fully believed “Jesus Christ was the Son of God” on Sept 28, 1931, a few months after his brother Warren did the same.
  15. On receiving #CSLewis letter of praise, Charles Williams replies, “My admiration for the staff work of the Omnipotence rises every day.”
  16. #CSLewis adopted mom, Mrs. Morris, argued furiously with him over his Christian faith.
  17. What books most shaped #CSLewis vocational attitude? Charles Williams’ “Descent into Hell” Chesterton’s “The Everlasting Man”