If the name Augustus Thistlewood strikes you as something out of P. G. Wodehouse, you and I have that in common. And we’re both right. There are echoes of Wodehouse at the beginning of Dave Freer’s science fiction novel, Cloud Castles, though the book gradually evolves into something quite different.
Augustus is a son of a wealthy, but low-profile, family of industrialists. He went to university to become an engineer, but he’s so brilliant he needed more of a challenge. So he took a degree in Sociology too, and that’s where the trouble began. Convinced of “modern” views of society and economics, he decided he needed to spend time with the less fortunate, “uplifting” the poor.
That mission took him to Sybil III, a floating city in the “habitable region” of a gas-dwarf star. The city floats on antigravity engines and shares the skies with “floating castles” belonging to two alien races who are war with each other but “neutral” (though hostile) to humans. The skies also feature clumps of floating vegetation that nobody cares about much.
Augustus arrives in the floating city as the perfect innocent. The place is the most debased and claustrophobic of slums, but he, having no experience of real life, trusts everyone. He’s immediately spotted by an urchin called Briz (a girl, though he assumes she’s a boy), who “takes him under her wing” with the intention of robbing him blind. Only Augustus proves strangely resilient – the stupid moves he makes tend to work out all right for him (kind of like an old Mr. Magoo cartoon), and his engineering skills prove useful and even lifesaving. And Briz, against her will, finds herself drawn to this gormless do-gooder, developing a genuine sense of obligation.
Then they end up on one of the floating “skydrift paddocks,” vegetation clumps, and discover a thriving, if marginal, civilization – a place mirroring Australian Outback culture, but in the air. And gradually Augustus becomes “Gus,” their strong, inventive, and decisive leader. In this capacity he’ll face war, slavery, and worse from the aliens, on whose domains he can’t help encroaching.
Cloud Castles was a lot of fun – creative, original world-building, and a cast of colorful, well-developed characters. Dave Freer has been a Facebook friend for some time, but I hadn’t tried his science fiction before. This is an extremely good space opera, and I recommend it highly.
Last week, Julie Roys published a report of evidence and testimony from wounded people in the ministry orbit of Grace Bible Church. It’s not something I want to repeat here, maybe because I don’t have an axe to grind with MacArthur. He’s one of the big voices on my side of the church–that would be the big tent side (small ‘r’ reformed or Calvinist), not my specific side (PCA). But like the accusations against Zacharias, this seems important and relevant enough to post.
There are many details, and I don’t understand how there wasn’t an accountability structure in place to take accusations seriously without preferring the victim or the perpetrator. It’s an application of the doctrine of original sin, that being anyone is capable of sin, even pastors, and the perpetrators of heinous sins are going to work on appearing to be above such things. On the other hand, accusers can lie, therefore accusations should be given some amount of due diligence to uncover the truth.
I’m worried that this story is an example of the corrupting nature of power. I’m worried this shows MacArthur and his people chose mega ministry over responsible shepherding. But even as I type that, it sounds false, because I know the pastor of a fifty-member church, the owner of the greasy spoon down the street, and the head flight attendant on a single aircraft can all be tyrants of their domains. Power doesn’t need size to corrupt; it just fertilizes the seed already planted.
The gist of this account is read in these paragraphs toward the end. Wendy, the primary victim, wanted to put everything behind her, but she read the report last month of Grace Baptist excommunicating a woman for not returning to her abusive husband.
Wendy said that similar to how she naïvely assumed her father had not sexually molested anyone else, she also assumed MacArthur had not covered for other pedophiles like her father. Wendy said she now believes covering for abusers is a pattern with MacArthur that needs to be confronted.
“It’s not okay to believe the perpetrator,” Wendy said. “I just don’t want other people to be damaged by Grace Church or other churches not handling things in an appropriate manner.”
“Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior” performed by Nathan Drake
This long-favored hymn was written by Methodist Episcopal Fanny Crosby in 1868 to a tune by industrialist William H. Doane, who “wrote over twenty-two hundred hymn and gospel song tunes, and he edited over forty songbooks.”
Savior, Savior, Hear my humble cry, While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by.
Novelist and screenwriter Raymond Chandler, who took up writing as a career after losing his respect and position at Dabney Oil in 1932, read a laudatory profile on Ernest Hemingway in The New Yorker and said, “I realize that I am much too clean to be a genius, much too sober to be a champ, and far, far too clumsy with a shotgun to live the good life.”
Well, someone should have told Chandler he had his own genius as well as his own version of the good life, which needed amending.
Mark Twain vented his spleen on the writing skill of James Fennimore Cooper with many accurate complaints like this one:
For several years, Cooper was daily in the society of artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred feet or so — and so on, till finally it gets tired and rolls. Now in one place he loses some “females” — as he always calls women — in the edge of a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the reader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They hear a cannon-blast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into the wood and stops at their feet. To the females this suggests nothing. The case is very different with the admirable Bumppo. I wish I may never know peace again if he doesn’t strike out promptly and follow the track of that cannon-ball across the plain in the dense fog and find the fort. Isn’t it a daisy?
Mark Twain, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” 1895
What are other people saying about books?
Big Publishers: There are five powerhouses in U.S. publishing today: Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan. If judges approve a currently contested merger, Penguin Random House would be allowed to buy Simon & Schuster, reducing the big publishers to four. This would make German media group Bertelsmann, which owns Penguin Random House and is already the world’s largest trade book publisher, in an Amazon-sized company. (via ArtsJournal)
We fairly hope … that this day Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love. To cry “Amen” to that, thus we appear. You English princes all, I do salute you.
Shakespeare’s Henry V, Act 5
Birthday: It is also Shakespeare’s birthday. He was born April 23, 1564, which is a date deduced by the record of his baptism in the Parish Register at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon on Wednesday 26 April 1564.
Block Party: Thoughts of Shakespeare naturally turn one’s mind to Brooklyn and “a timeless block party that could be 400 years old,” notes the NY Daily News.
Word Game: And when you think about block parties, you think about the word guessing games that are all the rage amongst the hip kids. The Folger Shakespeare Library has their own version called Prattle. This one is new to me. I’ve been playing Wordle and Quordle for several weeks now.
Photo: Bus Depot, angle view, Bond Street, Bend, Oregon 1987. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Naught to review tonight. It’s been a quiet day. No translation work. I started an article for the American Spectator; haven’t worked out the conclusion yet.
Kind of a nasty day, weather-wise. It started clear but cool, and now clouds and rain have set in. Still, it’s above freezing, and the precipitation isn’t snow.
Call it Norwegian weather. Vestland weather, anyway.
Speaking of Norwegian weather, my Norwegian almanac says that today is St. Gaius’ Day. Known in old times as the beginning of Gjøkmåned – Cuckoo Month. The Scandinavian calendar in old times began and ended its months in the middle of our months. The first day of Cuckoo Month was considered a good day to plant peas, I am reliably informed.
I’ve shown you a video of a past Viking festival at Bukkøy, Avaldsnes, Norway, where I’ll be going this summer. But that’s the first weekend. The following weekend, God willing, I’ll be at the Viking Market at Hafrsfjord in Stavanger. Above is video from the 2018 market.
I note that in their combat they allow guys to fight without helmets. Different rules, I guess. Neither my group nor any group I’ve run into in this country allow that, for safety reasons. Though it’s doubtless more historically authentic.
I have no plans to fight in Norway. I shall bring the power of my wisdom instead.
I hear they’re expecting ten Viking ships for the festival. Not bad at all.
He was the living truth. The religious had to kill him because they were religious. The leaders had to kill him because they were the leaders. The people had to kill him because they were the people. The law had to kill him because it was the law.
That was what it was like to be the truth in the world….
As he tells the story, he was troubled by his inability to understand Christ’s teaching. He knew the gospel story. He understood the doctrines (as much as any of us understand them). But how do we follow Jesus’ teachings? Are we really expected to give everything we own to the poor? Not to resist an evil man? To pluck out an eye that leads us to sin? What is Jesus talking about?
His son suggested that perhaps he was trying to solve a problem instead of trying to get to know a Man. So he plunged into the gospels – taught himself Koiné Greek to read them in the original language. And what he began to understand – oddly – led him to the Romantic Poets of England.
The book casts a wide loop, but always returns to those Romantics – Wordsworth, Keats, and Coleridge on the bright side, and Byron and Shelley on the dark side. And among them, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in whose novel Frankenstein he finds a key to understanding much of the modern rebellion against nature – Victor Frankenstein, he hypothesizes, was not trying to play God. He was trying to eliminate the Female. Which makes him a harbinger of our times.
There is much to ponder in this book, and I can’t claim I understand it all. I need to read it again. But the answer to the problem of getting to know the mind of Christ, as Klavan sees it, is seeing how in all nature – not only the natural world around us but our own nature – the truth of Christ is revealed. The Trinity is everywhere, giving us glimpses behind the veil, calling out to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. The life that Jesus lives is promised to us. The Romantics at their best glimpsed this, and some of them embraced it in the end.
There were things in this book that troubled me from a doctrinal point of view. I think any thoughtful Christian will have a similar experience. Because Klavan isn’t doing apologetics here. He’s peering into mysteries. He may be wrong at some points, but I’m not prepared to say so on one reading of the book. By and large, I think he’s on the right track.
Highly recommended for thoughtful Christians, especially those who love literature.
If you’re lucky enough to have read my novel, Blood and Judgment (it’s not too late! Click the link), you’ll know that Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, was based on a story about a prince named Amleth, found in the medieval history of Denmark, Gesta Danorum, by Saxo Grammaticus. So doing a Viking movie based on the story seems an obvious enough angle. However, Robert Eggers’ violent new film “The Northman” (which I saw last night, wearing my Viking clothes, in a free preview in Minneapolis) still owes more to Shakespeare than to Saxo.
If I were Danish (come to think of it, I’m a quarter Danish), I’d be a little offended at how my country’s Viking heroes are treated in the entertainment media. The History Channel’s egregious Vikings series took the Danish hero Ragnar Lodbrok and shifted him to Norway. Eggers’ film about the equally Danish Amleth starts in Norway, then moves on to Russia and Iceland.
The set-up is that Prince Amleth is the son of King Aurvandill, of some Norwegian kingdom whose name I didn’t catch (the dialogue was consistently difficult to understand. Maybe I’m just old and deaf). Shortly after his return from a Viking voyage, Aurvandill is killed by his bastard brother Fjolnir (Feng in Saxo, and in my book), who then takes the queen (Nicole Kidman) and tries – unsuccessfully – to kill Prince Amleth, who manages to flee in a boat, repeating his vow: “I will avenge you, father. I will save you, mother. I will kill you, Fjolnir.”
We next meet him as a grownup (played by Alexander Skarsgård) in Russia, where he has joined a group of berserker warriors who fight shirtless (horrific scenes of rapine and plunder). By chance, he learns that Fjolnir has been driven from Norway by King Harald Fairhair, and is now a sheep farmer in Iceland. Amleth cuts his hair to look like a slave (a nice, correct historical detail) and sneaks aboard a ship of slaves headed for Iceland and Fjolnir. Once there, he quietly lays his plans to kill his uncle, aided by a Slavic witch (Anya Taylor-Joy) who vows to help him with her “earth magic.”
Amleth will learn that his own life story isn’t as simple as he remembers. But that knowledge will not interfere with his vengeance. The final showdown with Fjolnir, on top a volcano, takes the revenge story even farther from Saxo’s account than Shakespeare did.
What shall I say about this film?
First of all, I must say that “IT” has finally happened. By “IT” I mean the arrival of that elusive creature history buffs and reenactors have awaited so long. At long last, there is a good Viking movie. Possibly a great Viking movie.
That is not to say it’s a pleasant movie. It’s dark, dark, dark. You’d think there was never a sunny day in the 9th Century. Almost all colors are muted (I understand this to be a characteristic of Eggers’ style, but my costume historian friend will not be happy with the lack of bright colors). The only exception I recall is one scene early on, when young Amleth covers himself with a vivid red cloak to escape the royal farm unseen (which seems to me slightly counterintuitive, but no doubt there’s some thematic purpose I’m not bright enough to grasp).
Otherwise, the costumes, sets and props were very good (by movie standards). Fjolnir wears lamellar armor, which will annoy many Viking reenactment group authenticity officers. The great hall of Amleth’s father has its high seat at the end of the hall, rather than half-way down one side-bench. A headband with bangles that Nicole Kidman wears is based on a jewelry reconstruction no longer considered accurate (I read this somewhere). The horses in Norway are too tall (though the ones in Iceland are fine).
But by and large the authenticity is pretty good. Better than we’ve seen before.
For me, the Vikings have been the center of my personal Romanticism since I was about 12 years old. When I’ve dreamed of a good Viking movie, this wasn’t the sort of thing I was hoping for. But that’s just me – it’s a fallacy to judge a work of art based on what you’d like it to be. I think “The Northman” is very successful in being what the director intends.
The darkness of the cinematography mirrors the darkness of the story. The kind of revenge-obligation Amleth feels is entirely authentic to the period (and many other periods). Even when Amleth gets an opportunity to walk away at one point, he can’t do it. It would violate his deepest convictions; damage his soul more than death.
But the revenge is in no way glorified. Amleth’s road is mired in blood. His father initiates him in a blood ritual. He and his berserker friends exult in shedding blood. The Viking religion is bloody, he sees visions of blood, everywhere blood is shed cheaply. There’s nothing romantic about it.
But there is something mythic. The gods are around every corner. The wolves (foxes in Iceland, where there are no wolves) and the ravens are always watching. And sometimes the gods themselves appear. Drawn, it seems, by the blood, just like the wolves and the ravens.
I could make an argument, I think, that Christianity is conspicuous in this movie by its absence. Amleth has no way of avoiding his fate in a world without grace.
But I doubt that’s what Eggers has in mind.
In any case, here’s my summation: “The Northman” is bloody, harsh, hyper-violent and disturbing. It is absolutely not for children or the sensitive. But it’s also brilliant and unforgettable.
As almost everybody knows, Arthur Conan Doyle will be forever linked (shackled, as he might have put it) to his epically successful detective character, Sherlock Holmes. And most of you will be aware that Doyle grew very weary of Holmes after a while, and killed him off (temporarily). He hoped he could win the public over to another character he created, an officer of Napoleon named Brigadier Etienne Gerard.
Brigadier Gerard is a Gascon, like D’Artagnan. And like D’Artagnan, he lives for honor and adventure. He is always ready to fight a duel or steal a kiss, and always first to volunteer for dangerous assignments. Where he differs from D’Artagnan is that he’s not terribly bright. His stories are told, we gather, in his old age, in an inn, to a group of friends. Gerard is now living on a pension, which he supplements by growing cabbages. He sighs over hard fate, which has denied him the advancement he has no doubt he deserved. He refers often to the medal for bravery he received from the Emperor himself, but which he never has with him. He keeps it, he says, in his apartment, in a leather pouch. I suspect we’re meant to understand that he actually had to pawn it.
In a series of semi-comic short stories, he tells of headlong adventures he enjoyed during the great wars. Sometimes on secret missions, sometimes accidentally separated from his company of hussars, he escapes from ambushes, traps and imprisonment, often (like the later Captain Kirk) with the help of some woman who has succumbed to his manly charm.
Generally (but not always) the joke is on Gerard. He can be counted on to run (or gallop) toward the sound of the guns, but he’s often clueless about what’s really going on. So confident is he of his own sagacity and aplomb that (in a manner that anticipates Inspector Clouseau) he often mistakes jeering for cheering. He is, however, never mean or small-minded.
I didn’t like The Complete Brigadier Gerard as much as I hoped to. The author is laughing at his hero (if somewhat affectionately), and the reader is too. For some reason that made me uncomfortable.
Your mileage may vary. No objectionable material. I might mention that I often forgot I was reading a Victorian/Edwardian book. Doyle wrote in a style ahead of his time.
But Ruth wore her own face for the world—wore an expression of strength and humility and goodness. Should you become accustomed to her loveliness, there would still be all that left. This was a for-keeps girl. She couldn’t be any other way because all the usual poses and artifices were left out of her. This was a girl you could hurt, a girl who would demand and deserve utter loyalty.
I’ve read all John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee books, and a good number of his non-McGee works. I’m not sure if I ever read A Bullet for Cinderella before, though. I find it hard to imagine I could have read it and forgotten it. This is early MacDonald (1955), but it’s a gem.
Tal Howard is a returned prisoner of war from Korea. Nowadays we’d say he has PTSD. He came home to a job and a faithful, waiting fiancée, but walked away from both of them, because he wasn’t the same man anymore. He wasn’t sure what to do with his life, so he thought he’d go look for the money Timmy Warden, as he lay dying in the camp, told him about. The money he’d embezzled from his and his brother’s business and buried in a secret place. “Cindy will know where it is,” he said.
Tal arrives in Timmy’s home town, Hillston (no state named). He finds Timmy’s brother broken and bankrupt, a bitter alcoholic. He meets Ruth, Timmy’s old girlfriend, who never guessed his secrets. He starts searching for a girl named Cindy, but there doesn’t seem to have been any such girl in the small town in Timmy’s time.
But he’s also reunited with an old acquaintance – Fitzmartin, another camp survivor. He’s no friend, though. A loner, a sneak, a spy, all the prisoners had hated Fitz. He overheard Timmy’s confession to Tal, and he has preceded him to Hillston. But so far he can’t find any Cindy either, and none of the many places he’s dug up have yielded treasure. Fitz has no doubt he can solve the puzzle – or, even better, if Tal solves it, he’ll just kill him and take the dough.
You may recognize in this synopsis a fairly standard Noir set-up. And that’s what it is – a morally compromised hero going for the easy score and finding himself in over his head. What raises it to the level of art is John D. MacDonald’s sheer mastery of his medium, the lucid prose, the complex characters, the essential humanity of the project. This book was written fairly early in the author’s career, but it’s a complete, polished achievement. Superior in its time and superior today.
“This Joyful Eastertide” performed by Akua Akyere Memorial Youth Choir
George R. Woodward of England (1848-1934) wrote “This Joyful Eastertide” to a seventeenth-century Dutch folk tune. The Akua Akyere Memorial Youth Choir of Ghana performs above.
1 This joyful Eastertide away with sin and sorrow! My love, the Crucified, has sprung to life this morrow.
Refrain: Had Christ, who once was slain, not burst his three-day prison, our faith had been in vain: but now hath Christ arisen, arisen, arisen; but now has Christ arisen!
2 Death’s flood has lost its chill since Jesus crossed the river. Lover of souls, from ill my passing soul deliver. [Refrain]
3 My flesh in hope shall rest and for a season slumber till trump from east to west shall wake the dead in number. [Refrain]
