Religion

For your Spectation

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They posted another of my articles at The American Spectator Online on Sunday. It’s called A Message to the Young: Beware the Groove.


It was around 1973, and I was attending a small Midwestern college. This being the ’70s, the school was already busy debriding itself of its past Christian tradition and regenerating as a sort of flyover Dartmouth.

I was in a Christian Ethics class, listening to presentations on the topic of sex. A young woman had already informed us that the Roman Catholic Church saw no value in women except as baby factories — I was kind of pleased with myself for asking her how she accounted for nuns.

Read it all here.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Raven,’ by Stan Jackson

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Like the raising of the Mary Rose, Suzie’s words, and now Cyl’s, had brought it to the surface and like the Mary Rose, the thought emerged covered in stuff I didn’t want to delve into.

I’ve been calling this series of mysteries by Stan Jackson the “Ste Webster” series, because that’s what everyone’s been calling the character up to now in the books. But in the present volume, Raven, “Ste” and his friends have started referring to him as Perry. Which is also what the series is called on the Amazon pages, so I guess that’s what I ought to be calling him now.

Ste, or Perry, Webster is, as you may recall, a professor of philosophy at the University of York. His fiancée was murdered in the first volume, Blonde, and he managed to identify the killer. This has given him a reputation as a detective, and occasionally people ask him to solve other crimes.

This time out, Perry is approached by a former student, Laura “Raven” Wellbourne. She tells him that as a girl she attended St Barnabas School, a prestigious nearby institution, comparable to an American prep school. During her time there, she tells him, she was blackmailed and serially abused in secret by the headmaster, Dr MacDonald. As an adult, now with an academic degree, she changed her identity and appearance and returned to the school, getting a job as an instructor. Her plan was to somehow find evidence of MacDonald’s true character, and expose him.

But now Dr MacDonald has been murdered, found floating in the school swimming pool with his head smashed. Raven is the police’s chief suspect, but she swears she didn’t do it. Since she’s been relieved of duties, someone is needed to cover her classes. Could Perry fill in for her, on a pretext, and try to find the real killer?

Perry is so appalled by what she’s been through that he agrees to do it. Before long an audit reveals that Dr MacDonald has been involved in massive misappropriation of school funds, to the extent that its future is jeopardized. This is of great concern to the acting interim headmistress, Julia Emburey, a very attractive woman who has raised an interest in Perry that he hasn’t felt since his fiancée died. But is MacDonald’s embezzlement the motive for the murder?

I’m enjoying this series of novels immensely. Sometimes you just “hit it off” with a series or a character. I like Perry Webster, and enjoy spending time in his company. Also, author Jackson has fixed some of the writing problems I’ve identified in earlier books.

So I recommend Raven, along with the whole series. Mild cautions for adult themes.

Goofing

Comedy in Midst of Coronavirus

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This bit, called “The Funniest Sketch in the History of Sketch Comedy” by our friend Anthony Sacramone, is not a bit that could fly in our current day of keeping our distance and staying home to avoid infection. Happier days. Enjoy!

Writing

Keys to Mediocrity

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“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”

Jean Giraudoux

Having different strengths as individuals, we will take different writing advice, uh, differently. Put that on a t-shirt.

Thinking of my own strengths, I can point to two solid words of writing advice that have helped me maintain the level of mediocrity you’ve come to expect from my posts on this blog.

  1. No dedicated writing space. By using this laptop and my tiny desk for many activities aside from occasional mediocre writing, I encourage distraction and my habitual multitasking. I may be a fairly gifted multitasker, actually. I get all kinds of stuff done. Not thoughtful blog posts that build an enduring readership, but tasks, man! tasks get done. With a dedicated space, one can mold physical habits to aid the dedicated task, so when I sit down to write, I actually write. Often I open the blogger, and all my thoughts sneak out the back.
  2. No writing notebook. I’ve used writing a notebook in the past for many things, including review notes on books I read. I don’t think going back to any of that would interest me today, but notetaking helped me think and remember observations far better than my current non-method. I’ve had a few good blogging ideas recently that were nowhere to be seen later in the day. When I first thought of this post, I thought I could rattle off these other ideas, but no, I don’t have any other ideas. I am a stranger to them.

Now, I’m on the loveseat with the laptop and Splatoon on the big screen: no distractions at all, words flowing like cold butter.

Speaking of multitasking, I’ve avoided social media for a few weeks and feel somewhat liberated. I’ve fueled their accounts with too much of my attention.

Photo by Marcelo Novais on Unsplash

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Fatal Liaison,’ by David Pearson

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On a country road near Dublin, a wealthy property developer is found dead in a crashed car. It wasn’t the crash that killed him.

Not far away, in a shed in the woods, a young man is found naked and stabbed to death.

Detectives Aidan Burke and Fiona Moore are on the case. The books at the older victim’s office look fishy, and his company’s labor force seems dodgy. But his family situation was odd as well. No lack of motives here, but lots and lots of secrets.

That’s the premise of David Pearson’s A Fatal Liaison, second in his Burke and Moore mystery series. I’ve reviewed the previous volume before, and this one completes the series to date. No doubt there will be more, because these books work pretty well.

As a Typical Male ™, I assumed at first that Aidan Burke, the senior detective, was the main character. But he’s really not. Aidan is smart enough and knows his job, but he has a drinking problem and has lost a step or two. He doesn’t treat Fiona badly, according to his somewhat Neanderthal lights, but his younger sergeant is actually smarter than he is. More than once she suggests a line of inquiry that he barely notices, which turns out vital once she’s followed it up.

A Fatal Liaison is a solid entry in a solid series. It’s not one of my personal favorites, but I have no cause to complain. Cautions for language and mature subject matter. Also implied criticism of traditional Christian morality.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Brunette,’ by Stan Jackson

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Stan Jackson’s Ste Webster mystery series continues with its second hair color title, Brunette. Once again Ste, a professor at the University of York, has a murder to solve… for reasons of his own.

Mackenzie West was, despite her brown hair, a golden girl at the University. Beautiful and popular, she was a good student and a star athlete, a prospect for the British Olympic fencing team. Until one morning she plunged down a stairwell to her death.

It could have been an accident, or suicide, but the police suspect murder, and Inspector Allen would like nothing better than to pin it on Ste Webster. Failing that, there’s another faculty member he has his eye on, Matt Harper, head of the Philosophy Department. Matt’s a friend, and Ste doesn’t believe he did it. When both Mackenzie’s parents and Matt ask him to look into the matter, he hesitates but agrees, partly to appease his personal demons. He’ll have to keep out of Inspector Allen’s way, but he’ll try.

It soon appears that Mackenzie had dark secrets no one guessed. Ste finds not one but several people who had plausible reasons for killing her. Which gives them reasons for silencing Ste as well…

As with Blonde, the previous book in the series, I enjoyed Brunette quite a lot, but had reservations. The prose is very good, and I like Ste and his supporting cast. As an added bonus, both Chesterton and C. S. Lewis get quoted (though Ste is not religious).

On the down side, I’m still annoyed by Ste’s tendency to walk into danger without protection, and the author’s tendency to rescue him through sheer luck. That’s a plot strategy that can’t be sustained forever. Also, the conclusion of the book was a little bit ambivalent in moral terms.

Still, I’m going on to the next book. The pleasures outweigh my reservations. Minor cautions are in order for language and subject matter.

Music

The Dream I Knew

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While still I may, I write for you
The love I lived, the dream I knew.
From our birthday, until we die,
Is but the winking of an eye

W.B. Yeats wrote fondly of his native Ireland and the pagan faerie roots he supposed it has. These lines from his poem, “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” published in 1893. Composer Thomas LaVoy arranged the last stanza into this choral piece, performed by The Same Stream.

I cast my heart into my rhymes,
That you, in the dim coming times,
May know how my heart went with them.

Fiction

Living in Fantastic Times

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We have the privilege of living in a time when contemporary authors are creating quality fantasy stories that are funny and inspiring and that say true things. Adults and children need Jonathan Rogers’s feechie folk, S. D. Smith’s rabbits with swords, Jonathan Auxier’s courageous chimney sweeps, Andrew Peterson’s brave and flawed Wingfeather children, and others to incarnate truths for us. Battling the forces of evil and experiencing a “eucatastrophe,” a moment of redemption, with a character in a story gives us a glimpse of what it’s like to know goodness and love truth.

Ginger Blomberg, “Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga and Why We Need Fantasy”

My kids and I have enjoyed some of the books Blomberg commends. I reviewed a few in posts from days on the olden internet. Good fantasy is a marvelous thing, and these are good titles, if you haven’t looked into them. Links in the original article.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Blonde,’ by Stan Jackson

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The occupant of the final ensemble, the only one of the three sitting, combined wrinkles with lack of hair like a pug slightly ironed.

Years back, I read a mystery called By Frequent Anguish, by S.F.X. Dean. It was the story of an academic whose girlfriend is murdered. It moved me deeply, for personal reasons. The sequel, however, left me cold, and I didn’t read any more in the series.

Blonde, by Stan Jackson, had much the same effect on me, and shares a similar premise. Perry “Ste” Webster, who teaches philosophy at a fictional campus of the University of York in England, was in love with Anna, a local barmaid. Though her social status displeased Ste’s upper-class parents, she was beautiful and smart and full of life – until Ste found her stabbed to death in her apartment one night. The police, of course, fixed on him as their primary suspect, but he has an alibi and powerful friends.

Soon he discovers an important clue – Anna’s diary. But reading it, he finds that she wrote in it about a personal secret he confided to her. He doesn’t want the police to see that secret. So, in spite of his grief, he takes it upon himself to investigate Anna’s personal connections. Some of the people she worked with were involved in a disastrous investment scheme, and owed a lot of money. Ste uncovers some dark secrets and angers some dangerous people, but the final solution to the mystery will be a complete shock.

I enjoyed Blonde very much. Not only was the mystery fascinating and the characters appealing, but the writing sometimes rose to a very high level (though the author has a lamentable tendency to overuse exclamations marks). And though no particular deference is paid to Christianity, Ste Webster as a philosopher and reader seems to me to be mostly on the right lines.

On the other hand, Ste can be an annoying detective. His approach to dangerous situations is generally to just walk in and trust that some deus ex machina will save his bacon. That weak plot device was used a little too much in this book, imho.

However, I have proceeded to the next book in the series. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Deadly Dividend,’ by David Pearson

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David Pearson, an established Irish mystery writer, kicks off a new police procedural series set in Dublin with A Deadly Dividend.

In the classic model of the Anglo-Irish police story, you’ve got your grizzled male Detective Inspector, supported by a younger female detective. What makes this series somewhat different is that the older male detective is not always on top of his game, and his assistant (who does not look like a model) has to save him from himself from time to time.

In A Deadly Dividend, a young banker is stabbed to death in an alleyway. When Detectives Aidan Burke and DS Fiona Moore inquire at his bank, it becomes apparent that the victim has been fiddling with his international accounts. It turns out he has had a clandestine dealings with shady interests. When another murder follows, they need to move fast – if Fiona can keep Aidan sober long enough to get the job done.

I quite enjoyed A Deadly Dividend. It definitely leaned more to the mystery than the thriller side, and dealt realistically with the plain drudgery that police work involves. And the fact that Aidan has a drinking problem and makes serious job mistakes – which Fiona must cover for – makes them an unusual fictional team. I also liked occasional suggestions of non-PC opinions.

There’s only one more book in the series to date, but I’m planning to read it.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture