Jason Evans is calling for 250-word stories inspired by an image. Deadline in a few days. Prizes are Amazon gift cards. Evans explains how he will judge.
I award up to 45 possible points for the following elements:
Pacing…10 points
Entertainment Value…10 points
Technical Use of Language…10 points
Storytelling…10 points
Voice…5 points
It’s a bit like Iron Chef without Alton Brown. There are already 30 entries.
Mike Williams has the story on how Judith Jones, who became a famous senior editor and vice president at Knopf, pulled the French translation of The Diary of a Young Girl off of the reject pile and urged her boss to send it to New York for consideration.
This song goes out to all the congressmen, president, and presidential staff in Washington D.C. Have fun this weekend, boys and girls.
I’ve been getting a fair amount of link love for the West Oversea trailer recently. I hope I’m not forgetting somebody in this list… Probably am.
Sam Karnick at the American Culture linked it here.
“Floyd” at Threedonia linked here (link defunct).
Pastor Paul T. McCain of Concordia Publishing gave me this (link defunct).
And just today, Rachel Motte posted it at Evangelical Outpost (link defunct).
Thanks to all. If I’ve overlooked you, let me know and I’ll remedy the situation.
By the way, if you’d like to link it yourself, here’s another option at Blazing Trailers. It has the advantage of including an ordering link (also defunct).
In other news, commenter Nigel Ray posted a comment on my “Apologetic of Story” post, which merits a promotion to the top of the page.
I had a similar experience. I was raised to be a rational atheist, with the philosophy that truth had to be sought in the world. Evil was explained as mistakes that people made, that they could be educated out of. But the older I got, the more evil I saw, until I couldn’t accept that, and had to switch to nihilism and the idea that the world simply was meaningless and thus evil.
But reality occasionally showed me actual goodness, as well, and in a evil world there would be no goodness (hence the argument that everything is really done for selfish reasons, for example). And so I was troubled.
And then I saw an X-files episode where a character, trying to defend himself against the charge that he was selfish, said, “I have love in my heart!” And the reply given him was, “you have love like a thief has money.” And I realized that the love I saw in the world must come from outside it, and this led me to Christ, who reconciles the contradiction of an obviously evil world that yet contains love.
I’m always excited and gratified when authors show up themselves to comment on our reviews of their books. We just got a comment from Jeffrey Overstreet on my review of Auralia’s Colors. I fear he wasn’t entirely happy with what he found here, but it was nice to have a visit from him anyway.
I think I may have been talking through my hat for months, and only just now realized it.
I was absolutely certain that I’d read reports from archaeologists that they had found skulls in Viking graves whose teeth had had horizontal indentations filed into them, and then filled with gold. Since then, I’ve given many people the benefit of my “insight” that this may be the origin of a statement in the eddas that the god Heimdal had “golden teeth.” Probably a high status thing.
But when I set out to write about it here tonight, I looked for a source, and could find none. There are numerous articles like this, about finding Viking skulls with horizontal filing marks on them, but nothing about gold inlays.
So never mind. These articles tend to make references to modern inlays and “grills,” and perhaps I conflated two separate matters.
The moral of this, if you hadn’t figure it out already, is never believe anything I tell you, even in my areas of expertise.
Sheesh.
Clouds bully the sun trying to rise over her head. Growling thunder leans heavy on the trees across the street. She walks to her car, ruminating on her mistakes until she doesn’t find her keys. Did she leave them in the car—on her desk? Did Jerry—take them? She’ll lose her job, if she loses her keys.
Like a black eye, the sun pierces through ugly clouds as she wilts.
“Dear Jesus—when does it end—what if I—help me. Help me.”
The keys lie in the grass behind her. She grabs them and stumbles to her car.
Giovanni di Paolo, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane
Thoughts thought during my Bible reading today:
I’ve been reading Mark 14. This dramatic chapter covers the anointing of Jesus by the woman at Bethany, the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, and His trial before the Sanhedrin.
The anointing incident kicks the crisis off by pitting Judas against Jesus (we know from another gospel that Christ rebuked him personally). Immediately after that he goes to the priests to offer his services as a button man. Then–from a human point of view–the whole thing heads rapidly downhill. Judas is just the first defection in what will become a general rout.
Jesus warns the disciples that they will “all fall away.” Peter emphatically denies the possibility and gets his own denial predicted in detail. While Jesus prays in the Garden, all the disciples fall asleep. Jesus is saddened by their weakness (Mark 14:37-38). But He’s not surprised, and He’s not discouraged.
The disciples are utter, complete failures.
But from the point of view of Christ’s mission, this sad fact is entirely irrelevant.
Because it doesn’t depend on them.
This is the lesson I keep coming away with, as I study this chapter. We ought to do right. Our failure to do so grieves the Lord.
But it doesn’t affect the outcome, because that’s His work, and His work is perfect.
I shouldn’t take too much comfort in this. That would tend to make me complacent (a sin to which I am prone).
But it’s a great comfort nevertheless.
Radio’s To the Best of Our Knowledge has an interesting show on Shakespeare, modern poetry, and language here. Of note, Arthur Phillips talks about imitating Shakespeare by writing in a Shakespearean style. He says he didn’t think Shakespeare was thought to be the greatest English playwright during his lifetime or even many years afterward. He said he may have been thought to be about as good as another playwright whose work we’ve lost entirely.
Phil has already reviewed Auralia’s Colors for the blog. But I have read it at last, on his recommendation, and feel compelled to add my word of appreciation for a fine, fine creative work, informed by Christian truth. I am tentatively prepared to declare Jeffrey Overstreet the best Christian fantasist working today (Walter Wangerin is doing other things). Possibly even better than me (!).
What are the things that irritate me about contemporary fantasy generally, and Christian fantasy in particular?
First of all, contemporary fantasists tend to use words badly. They strive for the same effects as Tolkien or Lewis, but lack the rich erudition of those scholars. Their prose is stilted and artificial, their word choices poor.
Overstreet does not suffer from this problem. He uses words deftly, as Rembrandt used brushes and paint. Every description is vivid, every image apt. It’s a delight to read his prose. I was reminded of Tolkien’s use of Old English names to evoke unconscious meanings in the reader. Overstreet doesn’t use that technique, but the whimsical names he gives to humans and beasts had a similar effect on me.
Contemporary fantasists tend to be derivative. When you read their work, you can easily detect a) which favorite writers they are trying to ape, and b) their political and social beliefs and prejudices.
Overstreet’s work is as original as a new baby. He goes his own way, telling his own story. The only thing Auralia’s Colors reminded me of was—in a general way—Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast books, but the resemblance is superficial. Where Peake portrayed a grotesque world, barely concealing the disease under its skin, Overstreet creates a world full of wonder and beauty, its potential buried under the weight of destructive ideas.
I won’t give a synopsis of the plot, except to say that it involves a country stripped of all color by law, where a miraculous young girl named Auralia, working in the wilderness, gathers and weaves together wonderful hues that remind the people of a better life and give them hope. It would have been easy to make the characters in this story black and white, but Overstreet’s creations have the stamp of real life on them—in their various ways they all think they are doing good, and they often commit their greatest sins in full assurance of righteousness.
Some readers will be tempted to allegorize Auralia’s Colors. This would be a mistake, I think. It needs to be allowed to speak on its own terms, to work secretly in our dreams.
Auralia’s Colors (the first of a series) is a book to savor; a book to break your heart. Not for young children (a little too intense), but highly recommended for anyone older.
Here are some funny testimonies from bookstore employees who have suffered at the hands of the public.
1. “I’d like to return a book”
2. “Our friend is really weird.”
3. “I can’t take back this sticky book”
4. “Do you have any mohair wool?” (scroll down five items for this great call from a philistine)