“The Windhover” by Gerard Manley Hopkins is the topic of this podcast, Poetry Off the Shelf, by the Poetry Foundation. It’s a good 11 minutes of poetry discussion, which perhaps you can’t get at the local pub.
Story Problems and Ailments
Douglas Van Belle of Andromeda Spaceways humbly offers “A Comprehensive and Totally Universal Listing of Every Problem a Story Has Ever Had” for your consideration. Things like starting in the wrong place, story pacing, and mundane dialog are only some of his suggested story criticisms.
This leads me to ask when did we begin to believe zombies wanted to eat brains? I remember they come from Voodoo lore, but where was the brain-eating part introduced?
Bless Them Vikings
Learned from a new blog called Evolving English, Old English used the word “hi” or “hie” for third person plural. The vikings changed that around 1200 A.D. “The word ‘they’ was introduced into English by Viking settlers and completely replaced the original Old English word,” according to a language quiz on the British Library’s new language blog. “They” is obviously a better word than “hi.” Who could dispute that?
I scored 4/6 on each difficulty level, which tended to skew toward British English, but I’m not going to complain. No, I’m not.
The Truth of the Matter, by Andrew Klavan
If what you’re looking for in a book is subtlety and nuance, Andrew Klavan’s Homelanders series of young adult novels is not the place to go.
If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a book to appeal to young males (the explicit target market for the books), you’ve come to the right place.
These are books for boys who like video games (at one point Charlie West, the book’s hero, even gets to use an actual weapon that works like a video game controller) and extreme sports. “Extreme” describes The Truth of the Matter well—not in the sense of extreme shock content or extreme edginess, but in the sense of action that never slackens, but constantly ratchets up the dramatic tension. Poor Charlie barely gets a chance to grab a nap or anything to eat through the whole story. Wherever he turns, he’s got enemies on his tail. The premise isn’t terribly realistic, but that’s the whole point. This roller coaster of a story isn’t intended to give you time to consider its plausibility. The only drawback is that it’s so compelling that it’s hard to stretch the reading of it longer than a day and a half or so, and you want more. On the other hand, Charlie’s earned some rest. Continue reading The Truth of the Matter, by Andrew Klavan
2 stories about seafaring men
If you’ve read my novel West Oversea (you have, haven’t you?), you may recall a mention, at the end of the story, of a massacre of the English Danes by King Ethelred the Unrede. (This isn’t really a spoiler, since it happens off-stage.)
It appears that evidence of that atrocity has now come to light in Oxford, according to this article from Press TV.
Remains of 34 to 38 young men were discovered in March 2008 during excavations for a new college building.
The bones dated back to between 960 and 1020 CE and included cracked skulls. Some of the skeletons bore stab wounds in their spines and pelvic bones. There were also signs of burning.
Five had been stabbed in the back, and one had been decapitated.
Thames Valley Archaeological Services (TVAS) found the skeletons beneath St. John’s College, which led them to a historical incident, which happened in 1002 CE.
Scientists believe the victims were killed on St. Brice’s Day, November 13, 1002 CE, when King Aethelred the Unready ordered Englishmen to murder their Danish neighbors.
I think it’s generally agreed that the murders did not extend into the northeasterly region called the Danelaw, where Danes (and, obviously, their law) dominated. I believe the Danelaw wasn’t considered properly part of England at that time.
But there were plenty of Danes in other places too. The forensic details of wounds and burn marks seem to support a contemporary account that told how the Danes of Oxford sought sanctuary in a church, but the mob burned it down, then put the survivors to the sword.
On a more amusing note, The Art of Manliness has posted this piece on the seafaring origins of much of our English slang.
My only disagreement is with the origin of “son of a gun.” I think it highly unlikely that prostitutes were brought along on sea voyages in the British navy. As I understand it, the substitute for shore leave of the day (you can’t give impressed [kidnapped] sailors shore leave, because they’ll run away) was to bring “soiled doves” on board to entertain the crew. This “entertainment” happened on the gun deck where the sailors’ quarters were. Thus, to call a man a “son of a gun” was to imply that he was conceived on a gun deck, that his mother was a prostitute. Which comes down to the same thing, but I’m a stickler for details. Even when I’m wrong.
Play Dead, by Harlan Coben
Perhaps with a little embarrassment, author Harlan Coben prefaces this new edition of his first novel with “A Note From the Author.” He begins the note, “Okay, if this is the first book of mine you’re going to try, stop now. Return it. Grab another. It’s okay. I’ll wait.”
Words in season. I like Coben’s books very much, but Play Dead is a classic example of that deadly subgenre, the badly overwritten first novel. One of the many temptations to which unproven authors fall prey is the one to tell the reader too much, to put everything into the book. Clearly, on the evidence of his later work, Coben has learned a lot in the intervening years. But Play Dead (he says in his Note that he left it as it stands because he considers it dishonest to re-write an earlier book) is too long, too verbose, and awkward. It’s like a teenager who’s outgrown his muscles, impressive in his height, but bad in his coordination. Continue reading Play Dead, by Harlan Coben
The Answer is Blowing in the Wind
“The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on Oct. 21 that it will be ending carbon trading — the only purpose for which it was founded — this year,” reports Steve Milloy. So cap-and-trade is over, though carbon offsets persist. Have you heard or seen this in the news? (via Roy Jacobsen the Beneficent)
The State of the Blogosphere
Who is blogging, how often, and what relationship do they have with traditional media?
Standard Time: Fall Back
For those of us who have been participating in Daylight Savings Time, we must turn back our clocks an hour. Fall back, you know.
Now, in New Zealand, they do things a differently: Continue reading Standard Time: Fall Back
Un-Touched By an Angel
This is a post about lost love. Not personal, romantic love (I’ve overplayed that card in this space), but television series that at one time or another were high points of my week, satisfying substitutes for an actual social life. And then something happened, and love died.
My judgments on these programs are not intended to be a guide to the reader. If you enjoy these shows (most of them are still on the air), God bless you. Enjoy yourself.
But they are dead to me.
First on the list is Touched By an Angel. Oh, how I adored this show during most of its run. Aside from starring Roma Downey, with whom I longed to run away to the Isles of the Blessed, it was produced by an open Christian, who made it a point to keep her angels (more or less) consistent with biblical descriptions. They were not the souls of dead people. They had no wings. And it was hinted, though not much dwelt on, that not only did heaven exist, but there was a bad place as well, where those who rejected God ended up. I understood that the realities of the business prevented them from saying anything specific about Jesus Christ. I appreciated the good parts. Continue reading Un-Touched By an Angel