From Karen Heller’s article with many title recommendations: “William Lashner, the best-selling mystery writer, is big on Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. ‘Books that are assigned in high school get a bad rap. This one is a blast.'” I heartily agree.
Fun Loving Intellectuals Making Up History
Apparently, if you want to argue that your country needs a radical makeover, a complete rebuild from the source code, then you will want to write intellectual books describing the horrid genocide by the country’s founders even if it didn’t actually happen. That’s what Theodore Dalrymple suggests in article on a skirmish in Australia over that nation’s history.
“There is nothing much more attention-grabbing than the claim that your current happiness and good fortunes is founded on a pile of bones,” he writes. “With a bit of luck, this claim will even turn people neurotic and increase the need for therapists.” And praise you for shining the light on the historic darkness and need for change. Let us be one nation, victimized, divisible, with liberty and justice for those who deserve it. (via Books, Inq.)
Together in the Dark
They sit together on the porch, the dark almost fallen, the house behind them dark. . . .
America needs Sam
I’m reading Stephen Hunter’s Point of Impact right now. I picked it up because I’d heard Hunter interviewed on the radio, and he described himself as “libertarian/conservative.” So far I’m enjoying it quite a lot. I’ll probably review it when I’m done. That’s not what I want to talk about tonight, though. I want to talk about the movie they made from the book. A movie I haven’t seen, and have no plans to see.
The main character in the book is Bob Lee Swagger, a grizzled, taciturn, moderately crippled Vietnam veteran. In the war he was the second top U.S. sniper. Now he lives alone in a shack in the western Arkansas hills, subsisting on his military pension, maintaining a precarious sobriety, tuning his guns and keeping his shooting skills sharp. There are three people in the world he talks to (plus his dog), and he keeps out of the way of the rest of mankind.
So when Hollywood decided to turn this book into a movie, whom did they cast to carry this interesting character role?
Mark Wahlberg.
Think about that for a moment. Ponder the genius of the mind that made such decision.
Isn’t obvious to the meanest intelligence (which, needless to say, puts it beyond the reach of most of Hollywood) that a role like that simply screams for Sam Elliot?
Sam Elliot can’t carry a major motion picture, you say? He’s too old to play a lead, you say?
I say that kind of thinking is what’s wrong with America today.
I say that if Hollywood had a lick of sense, they’d be turning out a string of big Sam Elliot movies. These movies would be like the films John Wayne made at the end—improbable action flicks about big old men (Elliot even has the advantage of not having gotten fat) who buffalo the young punks and charm the ladies, who never lie or say die, and by thunder they get the job done.
If they added a little jingoistic Americanism that wouldn’t hurt either. (I don’t know what Elliot’s politics are, but if he knew his best interests he’d do the lines and take the money.)
That would get me back into the theaters.
But will anyone listen? Ha!
I try to help. I really try.
Perfect Poetry
The Guardian is seeking nominations for great lines of poetry.
Intellectual Flight as Story
John Cotter reviews Annie Dillard’s novel, The Maytrees in the latest Open Letters Review.
God mend thine ev’ry flaw
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion’d stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.
America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
That’s the verse we should be singing today, though the first verse is good too.
I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag
Here’s Red Skelton’s tribute to our country and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Happy 4th of July!
I’m in no position to tell you what to do, but I’d like to go on record as saying I’m flying my flag today. And if you’re an American, I urge you to do the same. Dennis Prager’s column on the need for an “American seder” pretty much sums up my views.
Someone recently sent me a quotation I’ve read before, and like very much. It’s attributed to a scholar named Sir Alex Fraser, and it goes like this:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”
An excellent sentiment and (I think) indisputably true. Unfortunately, according to both Snopes.com and truthorfiction.com, the statement cannot be found in any of Sir Alexander Fraser (Tyler)’s writings.
Which is very odd. It would appear that somebody came up with this extremely perceptive statement, and instead of taking credit for it himself, distributed it under the name of a long-dead scholar. Which shows admirable humility, but doesn’t really do much to promote his purposes, since once the false attribution is known, the whole thing loses credibility.
Or maybe somebody just remembered wrong.
I’ll leave that puzzle in its knot, and close with one of my favorite quotations from John Adams, our second president and one of our most brilliant and amusing, if not the most likeable:
“We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” (Address to the military, Oct. 11, 1798)
Which is essentially the same point, I think.
The Ritual Bath, by Faye Kellerman
Will this work? I have my doubts. I’ve had the kind of afternoon where every time I reach for something I knock something over, and every time I pick something up I drop it (I’m exaggerating, but it feels like that). So I figure either my computer will crash or Bloo will go down just about the time I’m ready to post. But I shall make the effort.
I bought Faye Kellerman’s The Ritual Bath (first in a series of mysteries involving Det. Peter Decker and widow Rina Lazarus) on the strength of my fondness for her husband Jonathan’s Alex Delaware novels. I had misgivings. Generally I don’t care for mysteries written by women (I’m not weighing in on our discussion, some time back, of whether men write the best mysteries or not. I find men usually write the best mysteries for me, which is a very different matter).
I was very pleasantly surprised. The Ritual Bath is both a satisfying crime story and a sensitive examination of the conflicts and stresses involved in being seriously religious in a secular society.
Rina Lazarus lives at an orthodox yeshiva (Torah school) in a run-down section of Los Angeles. Ordinarily an unmarried woman wouldn’t live at an all-male yeshiva, but her late husband was a student, and the school gave her a job and a home so that she could take care of her two young sons. Her job involves cleaning and caring for the mikvah (ritual bath), used monthly by students’ wives.
The night the novel begins, a young woman is attacked and raped outside the mikvah. Detective Peter Decker and his partner arrive to investigate.
There is immediate chemistry between the tall, red-haired detective and the tiny Jewish widow. But though Decker pursues her singlemindedly throughout the book, Rina has to explain, again and again, that there is no way she could possibly date a goy. As the likelihood grows that the rapist (who keeps coming back) may be someone inside the yeshiva, there are numerous opportunities for personal and professional missteps and misunderstandings.
The picture of life in an Orthodox community appears (so far as I can tell) to be pretty accurate. At least it’s credible. The constant nuisance of concern for ritual cleanliness is not glossed over, but neither are the joys of deep belief and genuine community life. (As a sideline, it made me more aware than ever of Paul’s statement that “the letter of the law kills,” and reminded me how grateful I ought to be that Christians are free of such.)
Another pleasure was Kellerman’s portrayal of Detective Decker. I suspect that one reason so many female writers have a hard time with male characters is that they find it both difficult and repellant to try to get into our heads. I found no false notes in Peter Decker. He struck me as a very believable decent guy, at once strongly aroused by Rina and making an honest effort to keep his hormones suppressed.
Another thing that made the book interesting (and problematic) from a Christian point of view was the fact that Det. Decker is increasingly attracted to the Jewish religion itself, as well as to a particular Jew, as the story goes on. We are told that he was raised a Baptist but is nothing in particular now. Question: If a secular person is drawn to Judaism, does that bring him closer to, or farther away from, Jesus Christ?
Another thing that struck me was how similar the book was to a lot of Christian Booksellers Association fiction. The tall, strong, unbeliever is drawn to the beautiful believer, and as love grows he is attracted to her faith as well.
Only Kellerman does it better. Her writing is on a higher level (not perfect, but far superior to most CBA, so far as I’ve read any), her characters more rounded and believable. Also the book is earthier. There are intense situations. There is bad language. Those things might disqualify a book from CBA, but they also increase realism, giving the story greater credibility.
I’ll read more of these.