A moral problem

I remember it like it was yesterday, and I’m still not sure how to think about it.

I believe I was in sixth grade, so I must have been eleven years old. It was a tough year. The usual troubles at home, and my teacher, a forceful lady whose family had had some historical differences with mine (I have no evidence that that fact influenced her), had decided that the only explanation for the trouble I was having in arithmetic class must be laziness. She had made it her business to shape me up. She lectured me often in front of the class. She gave me special punishments. She’d made me one of her personal projects.

One afternoon when school was over, I was coming out into the entryway to the building. There were inner doors at the top of the wide steps, and outer doors at the bottom. Three guys were waiting for me outside the inner doors. They ringed me, blocking my way. “Why don’t you try harder at math?” they asked. Continue reading A moral problem

"Jean-Jacques Rousseau has triumphed"

On July 30, The Wall Street Journal published an excellent interview with English psychiatrist Anthony Daniels, who writes splendid stuff under the pen name “Theodore Dalrymple,” about Anders Behring Breivik and the Norwegian murders. Dalrymple worked for many years with criminals in English prisons, and so is well qualified to discuss murder in the context of European society.

The human impulse to explain the inexplicably horrific is revealing, according to Dr. Dalrymple, in two respects—one personal, one political. First, it says something about us that we feel compelled to explain evil in a way that we don’t feel about people’s good actions. The discrepancy arises, he says, “because [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau has triumphed,” by which he means that “we believe ourselves to be good, and that evil, or bad, is the deviation from what is natural.”

For most of human history, the prevailing view was different. Our intrinsic nature was something to be overcome, restrained and civilized. But Rousseau’s view, famously, was that society corrupted man’s pristine nature. This is not only wrong, Dr. Dalrymple argues, but it has had profound and baleful effects on society and our attitude toward crime and punishment. For one thing, it has alienated us from responsibility for our own actions. For another, it has reduced our willingness to hold others responsible for theirs.

Thumbs down: Field Gray, by Philip Kerr

I have to tell you, this one hurts. Being sucker-punched by someone you trusted always smarts, and my great admiration for Philip Kerr’s writing makes my disappointment—I could have said feeling of betrayal—on reading Field Gray all the more painful.

Kerr’s continuing character, World War II era Berlin-based detective/cop/soldier Bernie Gunther, is a splendid literary achievement. He’s a relatively decent man in an insanely indecent situation. He tries to do what he sees as right, but is constantly undercut by history. He’s Philip Marlowe on a meaner street, facing challenges Raymond Chandler knew nothing of.

He hates the Nazis and the Communists equally, he informs us. That suited me just fine. But what I didn’t realize (though I should have guessed from heavy hints in the last novel, The One From the Other) is that there’s one group he hates even more.

The Americans.

You see, the Americans have committed unforgivable crimes. They eat too much. They think they won the war. They see the world in black and white. They don’t always live up to their principles, which makes them hypocrites, and thus far worse than mere mass murderers. They treated Bernie real mean, arresting him in Cuba at the beginning of this book, beating him up (under the impression he was a fugitive war criminal), and imprisoning him for a while at Guantanamo (GUANTANAMO!!!!!), where it was hot and there were mosquitoes. Compared to that his treatment by the Communists, who merely put him in a death camp, mining radioactive pitchblende, obviously pales.

There is one passing reference to the Berlin Airlift in this novel. Bernie brushes it aside. Obviously the Americans did it “for themselves.”

And so he chooses a Communist agent, a murderer who has tried to murder Bernie himself in the past, over a group of American agents who have done him no harm at all. Because they’re just “Amis,” while a German, you know, is a German. Apparently it comes down to “Deutschland über alles” after all.

I’m sure Philip Kerr doesn’t want any of my filthy American money, and he may rest assured I won’t spend any more on his books.

Field Gray is a superbly written novel that I do not recommend at all.

On the sanctity of futile gestures

As you may possibly have noticed, I am not known for my cheery, optimistic demeanor. Whenever I get together with Mark Steyn for brandy and cigars, he says to me, “Chill, dude. Things aren’t that bad.”

So if I counsel you not to despair, and to act on hope even when you feel none, you’ll know I’m speaking from conviction, if not from enthusiasm.

Today I was reading from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 15, verses 42-43.

It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.

What struck me about this passage was the apparent futility of Joseph’s action. As a member of the Sanhedrin with suspicious connections to the Nazarene sect, in a city occupied by Romans, he had absolutely nothing to gain by bringing himself to the attention of the authorities on either side. The Rabbi was dead. Nothing could be done about that. Wouldn’t the prudent thing be to keep a low profile until feelings subsided?

But for some reason we can only guess at, Joseph went to the hated Roman procurator and ask for the body. Perhaps he went right into Pilate’s house, though that would pollute him ceremonially, since he was planning to handle a corpse anyway. It was a quixotic gesture, like a Confederate soldier flying the Stars and Bars in a city occupied by Federal troops. There wasn’t a thing to be gained by it, and much to lose.

But unbeknown to himself, he was participating in a victory he couldn’t conceive of.

When I read Two Years Before the Mast, I came across a sailor’s proverb, quoted by Richard Henry Dana. It’s passed into our language in abbreviated form since then– “Never say die, while there’s a shot in the locker.”

The moral of this story seems to be that we should never say die even when the locker’s empty.

Starbucks: Thanks For Coming, But Please Leave

High volume Starbucks stores are blocking select electric outlets in order to move sedentary laptop users out of the store. You know the type. Perhaps, you are the type. You take your laptop to the coffee shop, pay too much for something that tastes so good, and take up a chair for the rest of the morning. In some New York Starbucks, they would love for you to move on down the road.

Back On Murder, by J. Mark Bertrand

Those of us who read both secular and Christian fiction tend to employ a double standard. There’s a full-out “excellent” category in the secular field, and then there’s “excellent for Christian fiction,” which is understood to be not quite as good as the secular stuff, but better than the average CBA fare.

(As a corollary, I find that I also have a counterbalancing prejudice. When I encounter really good Christian fiction, I think I sometimes depreciate it a little, just out of defensive critical snobbery. Something I need to watch out for. I may have done it with this book.)

J. Mark Bertrand, in his first police procedural novel, Back on Murder, shows himself qualified for a place on the shelf alongside successful mystery writers in the secular market. Perhaps not up in the highest rank (at least yet), but definitely big league.

The hero of Back On Murder is Roland March, a Houston police detective near the bottom of his profession. Once he was a star, the cop who solved a dramatic case that got turned into a best-selling book. But a personal tragedy took the heart out of him. Now he’s a time-server, the “suicide cop”–the cop who gets stuck with the unenviable job of investigating when other officers kill themselves. He’s the subject of pity and derision at headquarters. His marriage is strained.

But at the beginning of this story he finds himself, uncharacteristically, at a crime scene, a house where several gang members have been shot to death. By accident, he notices a detail that changes the whole investigation—someone has been tied to the bed in the house, and that someone is not there anymore. Suddenly March is “back on homicide,” and energized by an investigation for the first time in years. Then he’s transferred to a task force investigating the high-profile disappearance of a teenage girl. He’s disappointed until he grows convinced that the two cases are linked—the missing person on the bed, he believes, was that girl. Working with an attractive female missing persons cop, he enters the unfamiliar world of the girl’s church and faith life, puzzling like an anthropologist over the odd customs and mores of these bizarre evangelicals. Continue reading Back On Murder, by J. Mark Bertrand

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness



The subtitle of Andrew Peterson’s fantastically fun young adult novel just about gives you all the invitation you need to read it: “Adventure, Peril, Lost Jewels, And the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree.” You can see the thrills and silliness right there (if you’re stuck on what toothy cows are, stick no further).

I loved this book, despite its minor weaknesses which are minor. Peterson says he knew while writing this book that his sequel would be even better, and I fully believe him. This story of children running from goblin-like occupiers of their home country has plenty of serious thrills, and it’s built on a mythology that is completely silly. For example, the horrible conqueror in a distant land who ultimately commands all of the disgusting troops in Skree is “a nameless evil” called Gnag the Nameless. His evil minions are the Fangs of Dang, in that they have poisonous teeth and hail from the dark land of Dang. A popular sport described early in the book is handyball, “a delightful sport in which each team tries to get the ball into a goal without using their feet in any capacity, even to move,” meaning the players roll on the ground. That detail is delivered in one of many footnotes which sow threads of silliness through the pages. Many of the footnotes reference one of 24 imaginary books, like In the Age of the Kindly Flabbits by Jonathid Choonch Brownman, Taming the Creepful Wood by Rumpole Bloge, and Ready, Set, Chube! A Life in Gamery by B’funerous Hwerq.

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness records the story of the three Igiby children who are waking up to the oppression around them. They’ve never known life without the Fangs of Dang. One night, their dog gets them into a little trouble that quickly escalates into a life-and-death struggle. Soon enough, the whole family is running for their lives.

This is the first book in a series of at least three. The third Wingfeather Saga book was released this summer.

Update: Never Mind! Book recommendation: The Last of the Vikings, by "John Bowling"

Update: Save your money.

This should teach me to make assumptions. I took it for granted that this Kindle book was the English translation of Johan Bojer’s Den Siste Viking. It is not. It’s a book about Vikings, identically named, by an English-language writer with a similar name, and doesn’t look to be a very good one. Sorry.

Today I discovered a book, available in the Kindle format, which I want to recommend to those of you who have that technology.

It’s called The Last of the Vikings, and it’s only 99 cents.

And no, it’s not actually about Vikings.

It’s a Norwegian novel (I’ve read it in the original, Den Siste Viking) by a writer named Johan Bojer. The English translation gives the author as John Bowling, which must have been the result of a decision by a publisher afraid that Americans wouldn’t buy a book by somebody whose name they couldn’t pronounce (it’s pronounced BOY-er). Continue reading Update: Never Mind! Book recommendation: The Last of the Vikings, by "John Bowling"

DK and GK

Late to the computer tonight. I had to pick up some family members at the airport. They’re just back from a trip to Germany and Denmark. In Denmark they were able to meet and get to know our distant relatives, in Jutland.

Needless to say, I am filled with impotent rage and envy that I couldn’t go along. However they bought me dinner, so I chose not to steer the car into an abutment, sending us all to a fiery but magnificent demise.

Over at The Corner, Michael Potemra writes of “The Inexhaustible Chesterton:”

One of the things I have come to like most about Chesterton is that he is one of the few writers whose books you can open virtually at random, and have a good chance of finding a breathtaking insight.