A man I grew up with is blogging about his visits to various churches in our area. He’s a thoughtful guy with many good observations. When he talks about going to his parents’ church, he’s talking about my church. Will he make it to a Lutheran church one of these days? I don’t know. People have to draw the line somewhere, and what with all the snake-handling going on there . . . 🙂
My neighbor’s misfortune
I drove about an hour south last night, to meet my pastor brother from Iowa for supper. In the course of the conversation I discovered, to my surprise, that he’d been heavily involved in flood cleanup the last few days. And he hadn’t been going down to Iowa City or Cedar Falls, but to one of the nearest towns, where many of his parishioners live.
Its whole business district was under water. Devastating losses (though thankfully no deaths), and nobody had flood insurance, because historically the water has never come anywhere near this high. He said they’d all been out piling sandbags the night before the crest, but they might as well have stayed home and watched TV, because the river topped the bags by several feet.
His church has “adopted” a woman who’d recently moved to town, apparently because of low real estate costs, and bought a nice house “by the river.” She’d lost almost everything, and had no friends or family in the area.
I was ashamed I hadn’t called to check how they were doing when I heard about the flooding. When I heard of the massive earthquake in China (where his daughter is now), I called right away to find out if they’d heard anything (she wasn’t in any danger).
I guess that because I knew he himself doesn’t live near water, and because the disaster was “around these parts” rather than “way off in foreign lands,” I just assumed nothing bad could happen.
It’s a form of xenophobia, I suppose, to figure bad stuff only happens far away. Wishful thinking, too.
Mother of Kings by Poul Anderson
I approached the late Poul Anderson’s Mother of Kings with some trepidation. I wanted to read it because a) it’s a Viking historical fantasy, and b) I’m thinking out a book of my own in which one of the main characters in this one plays a part. But in a book about Gunnhild, wife of Norway’s King Eirik Bloodax and mother of King Harald Greyfell (and his brothers—they ruled jointly) I imagined I’d be dealing with a Marion Zimmer Bradley-esque feminist fantasy, all about what oppressors men are, how smothering Christianity is, and how real freedom is found in the worship of some Mother-goddess or other. I expected visceral, existential feminine rage.
Having read the book, I almost wish it had been like that. It would at least have had some fire to it.
Gunnhild is a character of mystery in Viking history and lore. Historians believe she was probably a Danish princess, conventionally married to Eirik Bloodax, son and heir of Harald Fairhair, who is remembered as the uniter of Norway. (Anderson seems unaware—or doesn’t care—that historians today doubt that Harald was really more than a regional overlord in the west, who may have begun the process of unification. For the purposes of this story he treats the account found in Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla, the Sagas of the Norwegian Kings, as literally true. I’ll admit I do the same thing in The Year Of the Warrior, but I claim in my own defense that the theory was new back then, and I hadn’t heard of it).
In the sagas and legends, though, Gunnhild is a very different character—the daughter of a Finnish (“Lapp” or Sami) wizard, a witch of fearsome power, terrible in her hatreds, lascivious in her morals, and bloody in her vengeances.
Anderson splits the difference. He imagines her as the daughter of a Norse chieftain, a girl who chooses to learn magic at the feet of two Finn wizards, whom she manages to kill off at the same time that she magically summons Eirik to sail in and sweep her off her feet. This is a promising beginning from the dramatic point of view, but sadly Anderson doesn’t sustain it. Once married to her prince, Gunnhild becomes a fairly conventional wife and queen, devoted to her husband and children. She assists them all through their lives by the use of her magical powers, but is thwarted more often than not. Her successes, when they happen, aren’t terribly impressive or lasting.
The result is that it’s hard to root for Gunnhild. She’s not good enough to sympathize with much, and not powerful or evil enough to be very entertaining. She becomes an almost passive center around which the drama of 10th Century Norwegian politics plays itself out. This is a great drama, but in this work it lacks (it seems to me) the rich hues and symphonic music of real epic. Anderson does some moments of pathos well, particularly concerning the deaths of Kings Haakon the Good and Harald Greyfell, but overall I found it pretty dry.
This is a problem I’ve always had with Anderson, and with Science Fiction writers as a group (no doubt there are exceptions). Science Fiction writers by and large (and that’s what Anderson primarily was), it seems to me, have a hard time handling human emotions, dreams and aspirations. They’re more oriented toward machines and machine-like people.
I always comment on books’ theological implications and treatments of Christianity in these reviews. Mother Of Kings provides unusual problems. Anderson is neither friendly nor hostile to Christianity, so it could be worse. Historically Eirik Bloodax ruled Norway as a heathen, but converted, along with his family, to Christianity when he fled to England and became King of York. Some of his sons seem to have been genuinely zealous in their missionary work (a point that’s largely ignored in Heimskringla). Gunnhild is portrayed here (quite reasonably) as a nominal Christian, uncertain as to what religion (Norse heathendom, Christianity or Finnish pantheism) offers the most useful magic for her exploitation. Clearly she’s a heathen at heart, but her deepest inclinations seem to be pantheistic. This can’t exactly be viewed as an argument for pantheism, though, because Gunnhild isn’t admirable enough to provide one.
Perhaps I’d have found the whole thing more exciting if I hadn’t already known the basic story. But I doubt it. I can’t really recommend Mother Of Kings very highly.
Bears Repeating
Here’s an old list of five comic novels by Roger Kimball. The list is by Kimball, not the novels.
Printed for the Shelf Alone
Can books be too gorgeous to read? I would say yes, but I still want to leaf through them and feel bad about not using them. A book may be too pretty to read, but ink, no matter where it’s printed, is meant to be read. So I suppose pretty books should have blank pages.
Arabic Detective Novel
The Complete Review has the goods The Final Bet by Abdelilah Hamdouchi, which claims to be the first Arabic detective novel translated into English. It’s simple, they say, but it’s interesting. “The locale and circumstances do add something to the novel, as Hamdouchi contrasts typical Moroccan police procedure with what is necessary for justice to be served,” they report.
Sleepy Rats Dig Coffee Smell
A group of researchers conclude that sleep-deprived rats get juiced a bit on the smell of coffee alone. No taste, no sip, just a whiff. Because you know the best part of waking up is the smell of coffee in your house.
Also, here’s a report on long-term drinking of coffee may keep you from heart disease. And here’s your grain of salt to take with these reports.
In other news, our probe has found white stuff on Mars. Some believe it is the cocaine that lead to the end of Martian civilization. Skeptics doubt this belief.
Get Firefox 3
How I survived my weekend in Mankato
I’ve learned that the other members of the Viking Age Club find it amusing that I keep referring to the slings and speed bumps of outrageous fortune as “adventures.” I’d think that would be a very Viking attitude. Perhaps they admire me for it. In secret.
In any case, we had a few adventures during our three days at the Sons of Norway District One convention in Mankato, Minnesota. We arrived Thursday morning and set up a small encampment in the auditorium of the Alltel Civic Center, where the vendors also set up. There was plenty of room for us all (and for the two reindeer, which one vendor had brought and kept in a cage next to his booth).
The group members who were delegates were housed in the adjacent hotel, but those of us who were just there for entertainment stayed in dorm rooms at the state college. A lady at the registration desk gave me a city map, and told me how to get there. One of our club members who was in on planning also gave me verbal directions, but I didn’t even try to memorize them. I never remember verbal directions right.
Ron, another member, hitched a ride to the school with me, and I set out up Main Street, following the map. It told me to take a right turn at a particular street which (according to it) had one name to the left of Main and another to the right. After going miles out of our way, we figured out that the right-hand name wasn’t actually marked on the street signs. So we figured out at last where to go. Until the street turned one-way against us.
Eventually we stopped a jogger, who told us to go straight ahead, then up the hill. This meant we’d have to go the wrong way in the one-way section, something that doesn’t deter joggers, but bothers me. I finally figured out how to go around legally and find the street I wanted. Then followed some time taking more wrong turns, until we found the school (the big sign saying “Mankato State University” was a tip-off), and (fortunately) the dorm was right there, or we might never have been heard from again.
When we got in, we found that nobody had arranged for bedding or towels for us. We managed to wangle blankets and pillows from student monitors. Overnight I remembered a face towel I keep in my car, and in the morning I went out to fetch it, and so was able to take a shower. The towel was small, and not entirely clean, but it beat the alternative. Or so I like to believe.
The next day we learned that, in order to save money, the Sons of Norway people had made a deal for rooms without bedding or towels. Only the guy who made the arrangements forgot to tell us to bring our own.
So I hit him a few times with my sword.
Seriously, I did. He’s a member of our group, and we did some live steel combats. I beat him in the end, but it took five bouts to break the tie. This does not redound to my glory, as it was his first try at combat following his training. And he wasn’t even dressed right. He’d forgotten his costume, and wore a white shirt and tie under his mail.
The next night one of our members gave us oral directions to the college, and we drove directly there. Ron’s and my reactions were identical: “This way’s no fun!”