Yesterday I wrote about a couple Stephen J. Cannell novels I’d just read, including Cold Hit. Thinking about the book some more, I came up with further thoughts about something I’d praised Cannell for—his handling of characters.
The book is oddly dated by its presentation of a worst-case scenario based on aspects of the Patriot Act. Remember back around 2005, when everybody was scared that George Bush was turning the country into a police state, and how all the powers given to Homeland Security would have progressives herded into concentration camps for crimes of sedition? All that stuff’s still in force, right? Apparently, now that the Democrats are in charge, those same laws are suddenly benign.
Anyway, much of the tension in Cold Hit arises from friction and territorial infighting between the local police and federal agencies. One character in particular, a federal agent whom Cannell spends a lot of time teaching us to hate, turns out—in the end—to be a decent public servant, one who’ll never be the hero’s best buddy, but who deserves and gives respect.
It seems to me one of the weaknesses of contemporary Hollywood (I know I’m jumping abruptly from novels to movies. That’s because I think fiction sins far less in this regard these days) is that characters in movies almost never surprise us anymore. Hollywood has become all about stereotypes. All southerners (I’m sure you’ve noticed) are gap-toothed, undereducated bigots (except for Tommy Lee Jones). All preachers and priests are hypocrites at best, and probably sexual predators. If someone hunts, or votes Republican, they will be unsympathetic. All Latinos are “simple but proud” (to quote a good line from Thomas M. Sipos’ Hollywood Witches, which I reviewed not long ago), all Native Americans are simple but proud with mystical powers added, and all African Americans are wise. Young white males are drunken slackers. Young kids are smart-mouthed, and more intelligent than their parents. The moment a character appears, you already know all about them.
If you’re writing a story, surprise us with your characters. Find good in the ones you don’t like. Find flaws in your heroes. Your work will gain a lot of depth.
Reading report: Cold Hit & Three Shirt Deal, by Stephen J. Cannell
Over the holiday, I read a couple more of Stephen J. Cannell’s Shane Scully novels, Cold Hit and Three Shirt Deal. It would be pointless, I think, to give either of them full reviews, unless one of them was bad (neither is), since I’m already on record as enjoying the series. So I’ll just post some thoughts, thought while reading.
1. Does the Los Angeles police department really allow an officer to be their spouse’s immediate superior? If they do, I think they’re nuts.
2. At one point in Cold Hit, Scully as narrator talks about the integration of female officers into the force. I thought the passage was interesting, because he listed good arguments the old guard used against deploying smaller, weaker female patrol officers. He largely answered them, not with a strong counter-argument, but by saying “It’s done, there’s nothing you can do about it.” I find that suggestive (in the inviting-of-thought sense). Probably it’s just me.
3. In spite of his theoretical advocacy of a co-ed police force, Cannell makes heavy use of the inherent pressures, interpersonal and job-related, that come from men serving alongside women in dangerous situations. One could, if one wished, read the whole series as a subtle argument against female recruitment. Again, that’s probably just me.
4. When I first picked up a Cannell novel, I didn’t expect much in the way of character development. Cannell is a television writer/producer, and that medium isn’t famous for the depth of its psychological insight (though The Rockford Files, one of Cannell’s shows, featured some of the best character writing ever done in the medium). I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps as a relief from the constraints of the one-hour series, Cannell goes very deeply into the psyches of his characters. Indeed, in Cold Hit, he probably took it a little too far at one point, having a certain character make a personal disclosure worthy of Oprah’s show, in the middle of a gun fight. But that’s a rare misstep.
5. One drawback of the series format is that it’s hard to allow the heroes to change as much as classic story structure demands. Cannell has done a wonderful job of solving that problem by making surprising changes in his hero’s relationships, especially in Three Shirt Deal. What does Scully do when his wife/superior officer, previously the prudent one in the relationship, now becomes the crazy risk-taker, and he has to act like the grownup? The results are amusing.
Not Another Great American Novel
“Is the idea of the Great American Novel the worst thing that ever happened to great American novelists?” asks Malcolm Jones. “Some days it does seem that way.”
I’m not sure this writer has the right frame of mind. In fact, it probably doesn’t matter if an author hopes his work will be the next G.A.N. If it is, we will discover it for ourselves.
Don't Blame Star Wars for Bad Summer Movies
Danny Leigh of The Guardian states it isn’t fair to say summer blockbusters are all terrible because of the legacy they have in Star Wars. He writes:
Blame Lucas, by all means, but let’s have a little more accountability all round: blame Francis Ford Coppola and Roman Polanski, too, for never regaining the majesty of The Godfather or Chinatown; blame the fractured way we access entertainment; blame the Weinstein brothers for helping to botch the resurgent interest in smart but populist cinema during the 90s; and, if we’re going to be thorough here, why not blame corporate studio ownership and mass consumerism as a whole?
Literally Devoted
The word for today from the Wordsmith is bibliolatry, used in this sentence: “Fifty percent of college graduates expect Jesus to be here any day now. We are, says Paul Boyer, almost unique in the Western World in combining high educational levels with high levels of bibliolatry.” Martin Gardner; Waiting for the Last Judgement; The Washington Post; Nov 8, 1992.
Bibliolatry is defined as “excessive devotion to the Bible, especially to its literal interpretation.” It’s also the worship of any book, but sticking to the first definition, I have to laugh when I see references to a literal interpretation of the Bible. I hesitate to use labels, but I’ll do it anyway. The idea in the example sentence is the essential thing conservatives think of when defining academic and some other types of liberals. They tell us if we would use our brains we would see the nuance, the deeper meaning, the shades of gray in the situation and not be so cock-sure of ourselves, but when pressed for a good answer, they don’t have one. They can only criticize the answers the conservatives have given.
Bibliolatry in this sense does not exist. There can be no excess in devotion to the Word of God. See Psalm 19 and Psalm 119, but don’t take them literally. Take them poetically. Your soul may not “cling to the dust,” because you can have life in His Word.
By the dawn's Erling light, Part 3
As I attempt to finish up this little series of posts on American themes in my Viking novels, it would make sense to try to trace some direct lines between Erling Skjalgsson’s career and the birth of the American republic. This might seem far-fetched, but the Norse are not aliens to us. The Vikings aren’t just the ancestors of Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes. They established permanent enclaves in a number of European countries, notably (for the purposes of this discussion) Scotland and England.
I’m rather surprised, in looking through my personal library, to find very little written about the permanent cultural influence of the Vikings in these places. But I do find hints.
Arthur Herman’s book How the Scots Invented the Modern World* highlights how the Scottish Enlightenment informed the thinking of the men who made the American Revolution. Is it pure coincidence that much of Scotland—especially the Northern Isles and the Highlands—was heavily settled by freedom-loving Norse, with a tradition of representative democracy? Continue reading By the dawn's Erling light, Part 3
Sign of the times?
I’m not a great one for end-of-the-world prognostications, but all my life I’ve heard of this (or something like it) as being a sign of the Last Days:
Protestant translators expect to have the Bible — or at least some of it — written in every one of the world’s 6,909 spoken languages.
“We’re in the greatest period of acceleration in 20 centuries of Bible translation,” said Morrison resident Paul Edwards, who heads up Wycliffe Bible Translators’ $1 billion Last Languages Campaign.
Portable computers and satellites get the credit for speeding things up by about 125 years.
Full story here, from the Denver Post.
Apocalyptic or not, it’s good news.
By the dawn's Erling light, Part 2
Erling Skjalgsson (hero of my novels, The Year Of the Warrior and West Oversea to date) has held an ambivalent position in Norwegian historical memory. As a deadly opponent of King Olaf Haraldsson (who became St. Olaf, Norway’s patron saint) he landed on the wrong side of history. More than one historian has baldly called him a traitor.
And yet he never came under the kind of opprobrium that fell on his kinsman Thore Hund (Thore the Hound), who was one of Olaf’s killers. The Erling we meet in Heimskringla, a history which held a place next to the Bible in Norwegian homes, was just too attractive. To put it bluntly, St. Olaf looks rather shoddy next to Erling in Snorri Sturlusson’s account. Erling is tall, handsome, a liberator of slaves, and famously heroic. Olaf is short, fat, stubborn, proud, and rather vicious.
There’s sometimes a hint in the sagas (less in Heimskringla than in some others) that Olaf’s conflict with Erling and his kinsmen and allies was about the Christian faith. Doubtless that was how Olaf saw it too, since he was the kind of man who believed himself to be ordained by God, and that his enemies were God’s enemies.
But that wasn’t true. It was about government. It was about liberty, personal and regional rights, and a republican form of government.
It was a very American conflict, centuries in advance. Continue reading By the dawn's Erling light, Part 2
George Washington on Unity of Government and Need for Morality
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. Continue reading George Washington on Unity of Government and Need for Morality
To All Who Defend Our Country
. . . in times of war and peace, thank you. We owe you deep gratitude for our unique liberty.
Photo: PowerPee/Flikr
Whether you fought the bad guys or kept watch on our borders, thank you for your service.
Photo: soyboy7/Flickr