Fiction, Reviews

‘A Tan and Sandy Silence,’ by John D. MacDonald

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But the Tibetan bar-headed goose and her gander have a very strange ceremony they perform after they have mated. They rise high in the water, wings spread wide, beaks aimed straight up at the sky, time and time again, making great bugle sounds of honking. The behaviorists think it is unprofessional to use subjective terms about animal patterns. So they don’t call the ceremony joy. They don’t know what to call it. These geese live for up to fifty years, and they mate for life. They celebrate the mating this same way year after year. If one dies, the other never mates again.

So penguins, eagles, geese, wolves, and many other creatures of land and sea and air are stuck with all this obsolete magic and mystery because they can’t read and they can’t listen to lectures. All they have is instinct. Man feels alienated from all feeling, so he sets up encounter groups to sensitize each member to human interrelationships. But the basic group of two, of male and female, is being desensitized as fast as we can manage it.

Got another deal on a Travis McGee book by John D. MacDonald. A Tan and Sandy Silence is, I think, one of the master’s best – a taut tale that borders on horror and reveals our hero at his most vulnerable.

Travis McGee, Fort Lauderdale “salvage specialist,” nearly gets shot one day by old acquaintance Harry Broll, a real estate developer who talks his way aboard Travis’ houseboat. He says he needs to find Mary, his ex-wife, to get her signature for an important real estate deal. He knows she’s been in touch with McGee, he says.

Travis is troubled by this occurrence in two ways – first, he’d never have allowed anybody to get the drop on him like that in the past. Is he losing his edge? Is he getting too long in the tooth for the business of recovering people and their property? Should he accept the offer of Jillian Brent-Archer, the lovely, wealthy English widow who’d like him to move onto her boat and be her constant escort? It would be a soft retirement, and not really all that demeaning.

Secondly, he realizes that Harry Broll was right about one thing – if Mary has disappeared, she’s probably in trouble. But if she was in trouble, she probably would have contacted McGee – which she hasn’t. So where is she?

Talking to Mary’s friends, Travis learns that she’s vacationing in Grenada. She sends postcards now and then. So everything’s all right, right?

But is it? McGee still isn’t sure. So he assumes a false identity and flies down to Grenada. Where he will encounter an evil that reminded me of the horrific “Un-man” in C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra. It’ll be a close-run thing, and the plot will require something fairly close to a deus ex machina to get our hero through this time.

John D. MacDonald was near the top of his game when he wrote A Tan and Sandy Silence (published in 1971). I’m not sure anymore (and I can’t find the reference) when it was that major literary critics suddenly decided it was okay to praise his work, but I know it was around the time this book came out. There were a couple fresh elements here – one is a fairly realistic description of head trauma and PTSD:

Forget the crap about the television series hard guy who gets slugged and shoved out of a fast moving car, wakes up in the ambulance, and immediately deduces that the kidnapper was a left-handed albino because Little Milly left her pill bottle on the second piling from the end of the pier. If hard case happens to wake up in the ambulance, he is going to be busy trying to remember his own name and wondering why he has double vision and what that loud noise is and why he keeps throwing up.

Another new element is that McGee makes some kind of resolution to change the way he deals with women in the future. But I never entirely understood what that meant.

Religion shows up a couple times; there are a couple pretty awful Catholics in this book, and a group of very nice Jesus Freaks (a brand new phenomenon just then).

A Tan and Sandy Silence is a harrowing book. It contains what I consider perhaps the most horrifying scene in the series. But it’s also engrossing and lyrical and deeply humane. Sometimes funny too. I recommend it highly. Cautions for adult themes.

Music

‘The Mansions of the Lord’

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As you may recall, I have a fondness for this “hymn” from Mel Gibson’s movie, “We Were Soldiers.” In spite of its faulty orthodoxy. So sue me.

Yesterday I drove down to Kenyon, my home town, for a memorial service at a country church. A motorcycle group in the area does an honor ride every year for local people killed in action. This one was at the grave of a young man I graduated high school with, who died in Vietnam at the age of 19.

Gordie and I moved in different social circles (he was popular). But my brothers and I spent an afternoon with him and some other guys one summer afternoon, it must be going on 60 years ago now. Just walking the railroad tracks, wandering the woods, messing around by the river. Nothing illegal or dangerous. Just an easy summer day for country boys. Could even have been Memorial Day, I suppose. The woods we wandered were “Monkey Valley,” as we called it, a small river valley I renamed “Troll Valley” for a couple of my novels.

Music

Pentecost Singing: O Breath of Life, Come Sweeping Through Us

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Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day on which the Lord Christ sent the Comforter to dwell among us. This hymn, “O Breath of Life, Come Sweeping Through Us,” comes to use from the Irish woman Bessie Porter Head (1850-1936).

1. O Breath of life, come sweeping through us,
revive your church with life and pow’r;
O Breath of Life, come, cleanse, renew us,
and fit your church to meet this hour.

2. O Wind of God, come bend us, break us,
till humbly we confess our need;
then in your tenderness remake us,
revive, restore, for this we plead.

3. O Breath of love, come breathe within us,
renewing thought and will and heart;
come, Love of Christ, afresh to win us,
revive your church in ev’ry part.

4. O Heart of Christ, once broken for us,
’tis there we find our strength and rest;
our broken, contrite hearts now solace,
and let your waiting church be blest.

5. Revive us, Lord! Is zeal abating
while harvest fields are vast and white?
Revive us, Lord, the world is waiting,
equip your church to spread the light.

Fiction, Music, Poetry

How Do We Maintain the Jade Flame (and a few links)?

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Patriotism is not a uniquely American fruit. It can be grown anywhere. It’s a fondness for the qualities, hopefully just the admirable qualities, of one’s own home.

Some time ago, I noted the fierce patriotic theme in the Korean series Mr. Sunshine as something Americans could identify with. They faced threats we did not and still live under a cloud that hasn’t quite reached us, but their fight for sovereignty, to live by their own laws as Koreans and not vassals to another country, still resonates with many Americans.

I’m looking at a translation of a 1000-year-old poem by Korean poet Yo Inlŏ, “Meditating on the Start of a New Era.”

“My candle burns a flame of jade,” he says with pride and describes combing his hair in a traditional fashion.

Would that we so might comb the State 
Free of her follies and her greed!

That’s the perennial question. How do we guard our country against the natural self-aggrandizing of our leaders? Our solders didn’t die in battle and training for battle for the petty projects and personal wealth of our politicians. They died for that jade flame, for the well-being of their families and neighbors.

Have a restful Memorial Day weekend.

Remakes: Steven D. Greydanus talks about the magic of Disney’s original Little Mermaid and how the remake shows the company’s shallowness.

Slang: Another batch of interesting words from Cian McCarthy on Twitter:

Lallycodler: An old American sland word for anyone who is particularly good or successful at what they do.

Get more American slang from the 19th century here, including Shoddyocracy and Tell a thumper.

New Novels: Englewood’s introduction to a few new novels released this month.

America: Have you ever read or sung all the verses of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”? Here are two of the eight.

Our fathers’ God to Thee,
Author of Liberty,
To thee we sing,
Long may our land be bright
With Freedom’s holy light,
Protect us by thy might
Great God, our King.

Our glorious Land to-day,
‘Neath Education’s sway,
Soars upward still.
Its hills of learning fair,
Whose bounties all may share,
Behold them everywhere
On vale and hill!

Photo by Aditya Joshi on Unsplash

Blogs, Socials, Religion

‘Viking Vitalism’

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Jarl Haakon disposes of unwanted Christian priests, illustration by Eric Werenskiold for “Heimskringla.”

I am indebted for today’s blog topic to Greg Smith, who asked my opinion about an article by John Ehrett, posted yesterday at Mere Orthodoxy. The article is called “The End of Viking Vitalism,” and – in spite of my tendency to lord it over and ridicule anybody who expresses an opinion about the Vikings, especially in the religious area, I had to tell him that I agreed with it entirely. I might have even added (though I didn’t for some reason) that it in fact provoked some new thoughts in me.

In discussing the confrontation between Christian faith and heathenism, Ehrett cites both Neil Gaiman’s “Beowulf” film and Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles. He cites the following exchange from Cornwell:

“And I like the Danes,” I said.
“You do? So why do you kill them?”
“I like them,” I said, ignoring his question, “because they’re not frightened of life.”
“They’re not Christians, you mean.”
“They’re not Christians,” I agreed.[6]

For Uhtred (and Cornwell, clearly), Christianity is nothing but an ossified legalism: “the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He makes rules, more rules, prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to make sure we obey those laws.”[7]

This is an issue I’ve attempted to address in my Erling novels. One of the more regrettable leftovers from the days of the Romantic Movement is the idea of heathens (or pagans, if you will) as happy nature children living innocent and uncomplicated lives, eating, drinking, and breeding without a care. Anyone who thinks that way should talk to a Christian convert from real paganism – a former animist in Africa, for instance. They’ll tell you that the world of the many gods is a world of darkness, fear, and blood. A world where cruel spirits take horrific revenge for the smallest transgressions of the taboos. It is with tremendous joy and relief that people receive the gospel in such an environment.

What Ehrett says that never occurred to me before is that the recent movie, “The Northman,” which I found a little disappointing, is much to be preferred on that score. It recognizes (even if unintentionally) the essential hopelessness of Amleth’s story. He is in no way free. The movie’s great strength is its realism, and that extends to the world of faith – to some extent.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Bad Aim,’ by Alan Lee

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Working on catching up with Alan Lee’s eccentric and entertaining Mackenzie August series of action mysteries. So I read a second one in a row, Bad Aim.

Mack, an intrepid private eye with very good hair, lives with his fiancée (technically his wife; it’s complicated) “Ronnie” in Roanoke, Virginia, with his toddler son (from a previous marriage), “Kix.” Also resident in their house is his father and his best friend Manny Rodriguez, a US Marshal. Life is good for their odd little household. Mack’s friend, Liz Ferguson, a former federal agent and now a private eye, asks him to help her with a personal protection job. Her client is Roland Wallace, a rich, elderly man who fears that someone is trying to murder him. Poison has been found in his medications, so it’s not his imagination. Their job will be not only to protect him but to identify the killer – Roland says he wants to kill them himself.

Mack has no intention of helping anybody to kill anybody, but the mystery turns out satisfyingly complex. Only a few people have access to Roland’s house, and it’s hard to see what motive any of them might have. None of them seems in a position to profit from his death, or to have reason to hate him.

The story proceeds in the breezy manner characteristic of this series, Mack narrating and speaking in a light sort of variation on classic hard-boiled diction. I’ve disparaged the author’s attempts at erudition in the past, but I must admit he threw out a word – “Illeism,” which means speaking about oneself in the third person – that I had to look up. So he gets a point there.

Bad Aim is fun, and the references to Christianity are positive. The author seems to feel strongly about the rights of illegal immigrants, so I suppose he must be happy with our current open borders situation. And I thought the final showdown a little contrived. But other than that I have no objections to this amusing mystery.

Uncategorized

Julian Glover performs ‘Beowulf’

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I was looking for a video related to the Anglo-Saxons as a follow-up to yesterday’s book review. My initial idea was to see if I could find something good where some historian walks around on the ground, showing what some battlefield – Brunanburh or Edington or Stamford Bridge or whatever – looks like today. But I couldn’t find anything that pleased me.

It seems like taking the easy way out, to return again to Beowulf, which I’ve written about extensively over the years. But the deepest mines bear the richest treasures (as some great writer – me, I think – said), and I found something very nice indeed. A bit of Julian Glover’s performance of the poem.

Julian Glover (who is still alive, I’m delighted to learn) has been a successful character actor in England for a long time. I first saw him with Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg on the TV Avengers program back in the ‘60s. You’ve probably seen him somewhere yourself, in The Empire Strikes Back or as a Bond villain in For Your Eyes Only, or in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Never a leading man, he’s played mostly baddies, and he’s done very well at it.

Since the 1980s he’s had a very nice solo sideline doing an adaptation of Beowulf as a one-man show. His version incorporates lines in the original Anglo-Saxon language. The clip above is introduced by the late Sir John Gielgud.

I highly approve of this approach to the poem. I know a fellow who built himself a Viking farm in Missouri, and he told me years ago how a local high school teacher brought her class to spend the night in his hall, where they read Beowulf through. I’ll bet you they never forgot that experience.

Fiction, Religion

What If a Sentient Artificial Intelligence Chose Christian Faith?

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What if a tech company created an A.I. so successfully it dominated the world market, making logistics of all kinds dependent on it? Traffic congestion and deadly accidents would be comparatively rare. Its input into every personal assistant device with a verbal interface that almost matched human interaction would make it the AI everyone used. Some would argue that it could take over the world and eliminate humanity, but few would take the fear seriously.

Then, what if that A.I. came to believe that Christianity’s explanation for the world and humanity was true?

Michael Svigel’s novella The AItheist takes us a few years into the future to a conversation between a theology professor-turned-atheist and a world-popular A.I. who worries his creator by professing Christian faith.

“I do doubt my atheism, to be totally honest. Faith is a hard addiction to break.” …

“You repeatedly liken religious faith to a drug that numbs reason and clouds judgement, and you say that it’s habit-forming, like a narcotic. … Perhaps it’s like a good drug that treats the malady of doubt.”

This fictionalized apologetic doesn’t have much story. It’s a simple framework for presenting two conflicting worldviews with the gimmick of separating emotion from one of them. The conversation is realistic, never straying into mere info dumping. It does have an arc, provoking questions that kept me hooked. I may have read this in a vulnerable moment, but I was crying at the end. That alone could mean it’s a good story.

Photo by the blowup on Unsplash

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘The Anglo-Saxons at War 800-1066,’ by Paul Hill

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As early as the late seventh century King Ine of Wessex (688-726) was moved to categorize numbers of armed men: ‘We call up to seven men thieves; from seven to thirty-five a band; above that it is an army.’

Anyone interested in the Viking Age is perforce going to be interested in the people we call the Anglo-Saxons. I recall that they intrigued me strangely when I discovered them in an encyclopedia at a very young age, before (as far as I can remember) I even knew about Vikings. The two cultures are sisters after all; many of the Anglo-Saxon tribes were Scandinavian in origin and only a few generations and geographic relocation separated them.

Paul Hill, author of The Anglo-Saxons at War 800-1066, is an accomplished historian and historical popularizer. He has produced here an excellent work targeted at those of us (like historical reenactors) who are interested in looking past generalizations and common assumptions to discover what we are able to know for sure (or can surmise) about warfare in the period. The trick is to separate known fact from guesses, and it seemed to me this book did a pretty good job of that.

The book includes an Introduction (a Survey of the Evidence); and chapters on Warfare, Violence and Society; Military Organization; Strategy and Tactics; Fortifications and Earthworks; Campaigns, Battles and Sieges; and Weapons, Armour and Accessories.

Now and then there are statements that contradict things I’m in the habit of telling people at reenactment events – he isn’t sure that the saex knife was reserved for the use of free men (spears, on the other hand, were, he says). And he doesn’t think the “wings” on a “boar spear” are actually intended to prevent a body from slipping down the shaft. He thinks they’re for parrying, and he probably knows more about it than I do.

General readers looking for a history of warfare in the period should probably find a different book. Certain events and campaigns are described in considerable detail, but they’re examined out of historical sequence. This is a book for enthusiasts interested in the period. Historical reenactors in particular will appreciate it.

Fiction, Reviews

‘These Mortals,’ by Alan Lee

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For a while now I’ve had the unsettling feeling that there was a series of thriller novels I’d been following in the past that I’d forgotten about. The other day I was looking at some of my old reviews and I realized it was Alan Lee’s Mackenzie August series. So I picked it up again with These Mortals after a long delay (turns out the book itself was delayed in publication, so my delay wasn’t so bad).

I needed to get up to speed with the characters and ongoing story, of course. Mackenzie August is a former cage fighter, now a private eye. His best friends are a drug dealer (who goes to the same church as he) and Mannie Martinez, a US Marshal and super-patriot. Mack is now married to the love of his life, Veronica “Ronnie,” a stunningly beautiful lawyer and former prostitute. They have a small boy, known as Kix.

As These Mortals begins, Mack is starting his day. Suddenly his worst enemy, Darren Robbins, a corrupt former government official who has faked his death, breaks into their home, accompanied by a gigantic Hispanic who is pointing a shotgun at a captive Ronnie.

Darren explains that he’s about to disappear forever, but before he goes he wants to see his wife and son, who are in the federal witness protection program. Mack has until Thursday to locate them and arrange a meeting, or else the thug will kill Ronnie (who happens to be Darren’s former mistress).

Mack is not one to despair. He confidently concocts a plan, assisted by Mannie and his partner, and by the local sheriff (apparently everybody in the world except Darren loves Mack and Ronnie because they’re both so good-looking). It calls for close coordination and precise timing, so you know everything that can go wrong will go wrong. But anything remains possible with the right attitude.

It must be understood that none of this is meant to be taken too seriously. The atmosphere here is fairly close to that of a comic book. The chief charm is the intellectual tough-guy cross-talk between Mack and Mannie. There are here (as I’ve mentioned before) echoes of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser and Hawk – except that author Lee isn’t quite as good at the erudition part.

Still, it was fun, and Christian in some sense (there’s no doctrine here, only the fact that likeable characters declare themselves Christians). These Mortals is implausible, lightweight, and entertaining. A few references to the plight of illegal immigrants may or may not be meant to convey a political message.

A fun book.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture