Meditation on fame

January 27, 2009 Lars Walker Leave a comment

Years ago, I was walking across the campus of Augsburg College in Minneapolis with my roommate. We were discussing our personal weaknesses. My roommate confessed that he coveted wealth. I replied that my inordinate lust was for fame.

I have one autograph (Sissel’s), but I didn’t ask for it. My Viking friends procured it for me (no doubt by means best left to the imagination). I’ve always had an arrogant idea that I’m the kind of person who gives autographs, not one who asks for them.

This meditation on fame was sparked by this piece by James Lileks today, in which he talked about old local radio personalities (WCCO Radio used to be the commonly accepted broadcast public square of southern Minnesota. Nowadays, not so much), in which he mentioned Cedric Adams. Adams is almost forgotten today, even here, but in his day he was both the most popular columnist and the most popular radio personality in the Twin Cities. Airline pilots said they could always tell when his show was done, if they were flying over the metropolitan area, because all the house lights went out at once. Continue reading Meditation on fame →

Authors

Updike

January 27, 2009 Phil Leave a comment

Author John Updike, 76, has passed away. I remember a college friend reading the Run, Rabbit, Run and having conflict with himself over whether to recommend it to any of us. He liked so much but hated so much of it that he could only talk about it in a tongue-tied fashion. Updike is certainly an important author, but I wonder if his work exemplifies one of the major problem with modern literature. He wrote realistically and too much about sex.

But I should stop talking about this. Bloomberg has the facts.

Bookselling, Publishing

“New Consumer-oriented Book Event”

January 27, 2009 Phil Leave a comment

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association is hosting a new book convention, the Christian Book Expo Dallas 2009. The EPCA states, “This event, a first for ECPA and the first Christian book fair of its type, will bring together publishers, authors and consumers. ECPA is holding this event to reach a critical demographic – anybody making or influencing book buying decisions.”

I suppose that could be more broadly defined–can’t think of how at the moment. The event is affordable ($50 for three days) and open to the public.

The ECPA president says, “We are trying to build future retail sales. We believe these influential Christians will experience these authors and their message and take that message back to their friends and church families and in turn refer them to their local retailer. Our goal is for awareness and exposure.”

Authors

Poe: Boston, Baltimore, or Philadelphia

January 27, 2009 Phil Leave a comment

On January 19, the day before our government stepped up the pace on taking away the earnings of the disfavored, Edgar Allan Poe was born–200 years early. Today, three cities are fighting over his legacy. “For a poet and short-story writer devoted to elegy and horror, a man whose great subject was death, such posthumous popularity is rich in irony,” writes Julia Klein for Obit Magazine.

Let us quote Poe’s own words to apply to this situation: “… it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum.”

Poetry

Longfellow on Milton

January 27, 2009 Phil Leave a comment

I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold

How the voluminous billows roll and run,

Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun

Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,

And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold

All its loose-flowing garments into one,

Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun

Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.

So in majestic cadence rise and fall

The mighty undulations of thy song,

O sightless bard, England’s Maeonides!

And ever and anon, high over all

Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong,

Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.

(BTW, Maeonides is a reference or name for Homer, who is thought to have been blind, so here Longfellow is naming John Milton an English bard like Homer.)

Fiction, Reviews

The Road to Vengeance, by Judson Roberts

January 26, 2009 Lars Walker Leave a comment

The Road To Vengeance is Book Three of Judson Roberts’ Young Adult Strongbow Saga, whose previous volumes I’ve reviewed already. The series continues strong; indeed, I think this is the best so far.

The hero of the books is Halfdan, a young Dane living in the 9th Century. Born a thrall (slave), the illegitimate son of a chieftain, he was freed after the deaths of both his parents, and trained as a warrior by his half-brother in Book One, Viking Warrior. But his entire new family was massacred by a greedy stepbrother and his Viking crew. Halfdan escaped and swore vengeance; but in order to achieve that he needs to acquire wealth and powerful friends.

This he has done by joining an invasion of France (based on an actual historical expedition in 845). Book Two, Dragons From the Sea, told how Halfdan went on a scouting expedition, which ended with his near escape from the Franks, bringing back with him a hostage, a young Frankish noblewoman who is a novitiate nun. Continue reading The Road to Vengeance, by Judson Roberts →

Authors, Non-fiction

Rice Called Out of Darkness

January 26, 2009 Phil Leave a comment

Pete Peterson praises the revelations in Anne Rice’s memoir, Called Out of Darkness.

Such an about face of worldview surely came as a shock to some fans her vampire mythology and there is a sense that she wants to lay out the pieces of the puzzle to provide insight for those to whom the final image was a surprise. She also aims to lay to rest the suspicions of those that may think her conversion is flighty, shallow, or spur of the moment. Continue reading Rice Called Out of Darkness →

Writing

Now, Let’s Hear from the Author

January 26, 2009 Phil Leave a comment

S.D. Smith blogs about writing advice he heard from Orson Scott Card and whether that advice is universally applicable. How much, if any, should an author voice be heard, noticed, observed, seen, read into as it were. What I mean to say is what place has narration outside observations from the story’s characters?

Smith refers to P.G. Wodehouse as an author whose voice is heard loudly within his stories, but I’m not sure that’s quite right. I just read a short story, similar in style to many other short stories of his, in which a narrator is introduced to the reader and then he takes over the story completely. It was a story within a story. The Oldest Member of the Drones Club (or another one I didn’t notice) tells a motivational story to a young member who wants to quit playing golf. Wodehouse isn’t telling us the story so much as the Oldest Member is, so all of the narrative flourishes come from a character in the story, not really the author. That’s close to the way the Wooster and Jeeves stories are written too. Bertie Wooster is talking to us, not a background narrator.

In this way, I think Wodehouse comes close to following Card’s advice that a writer should remain invisible.

Religion

“Those Odd Atheist Bus Slogans”

January 26, 2009 Lars Walker Leave a comment

Hal G. P. Colebatch, whom I like to think of as a friend because we’ve exchanged a few e-mails, has a splendid defense of Christianity (and religion in general) in culture today at The American Spectator Online.

Religion

On not losing faith

January 23, 2009 Lars Walker Leave a comment

I’m still thinking about the Charles Schulz biography I reviewed last night. There are so many similarities between my personality and Schulz’ (if you read the review, you know that’s not what you’d call bragging) that the story of his life was for me a vivid cautionary tale, and I’m trying not to waste it.

Schulz had (and I have) an emotional problem, which is a misfortune. But the condition provides a convenient excuse for shirking spiritual duty, which is a not a misfortune but a sin. (I think it’s a reasonable argument that people like us can’t be expected to do everything that more outgoing people do, but that’s not the same thing as being excused from service altogether.) Continue reading On not losing faith →

Brandywine Books

Meditation on fame

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Updike

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“New Consumer-oriented Book Event”

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Poe: Boston, Baltimore, or Philadelphia

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Longfellow on Milton

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The Road to Vengeance, by Judson Roberts

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Rice Called Out of Darkness

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Now, Let’s Hear from the Author

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“Those Odd Atheist Bus Slogans”

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On not losing faith

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