Of course the list changes. But currently it is Holly Hunter, Frances McDormond, Sandra Bullock, and Helen Mirren. Hunter's southern accent is most fetching.
Second tier and currently out of favor are Julia Ormond, Judy Davis, Kate Beckinsale, and Linda Hamilton.
Past faves were Whitney Blake, Carol Lynley, and Kim Novak.
Fav from an early era is Jean Arthur.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Crystal Persuasion
In the future, politics and religion will be pharmaceutically alterable.
Which will have all kinds of amusing consequences. For example, if you don't like your spouse's ideology, you just obtain a pill on the black market and slip it into his/her OJ. Imagine if you will, an unhappy couple each dosing the other at the same time with a drug that changes one's religious/political ideology. They wake up with positions reversed and still incompatible!
Instead of political advertising, campaign managers will have spray planes flying overhead on election day, misting atomized drugs down on the populace. Complications arising when the same voters are engulfed by pharmaceuticals from competing candidates.
Same for evangelism. Evangelical churches will be using atomized mist on the streets, and trying to sneak their own chemical brew into the water supply.
Better living through chemistry!
Which will have all kinds of amusing consequences. For example, if you don't like your spouse's ideology, you just obtain a pill on the black market and slip it into his/her OJ. Imagine if you will, an unhappy couple each dosing the other at the same time with a drug that changes one's religious/political ideology. They wake up with positions reversed and still incompatible!
Instead of political advertising, campaign managers will have spray planes flying overhead on election day, misting atomized drugs down on the populace. Complications arising when the same voters are engulfed by pharmaceuticals from competing candidates.
Same for evangelism. Evangelical churches will be using atomized mist on the streets, and trying to sneak their own chemical brew into the water supply.
Better living through chemistry!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Random Reflections. To be updated.
There is nothing more dangerous to your morals than hanging around like-minded people.
The internet is a cold and lonely place. If you are looking for a friend, adopt a dog.
All places are cold and lonely. If you are looking for a friend, adopt a dog.
The internet is a cold and lonely place. If you are looking for a friend, adopt a dog.
All places are cold and lonely. If you are looking for a friend, adopt a dog.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Not Quite Matinee Idol Looks
What do directors and casting agents look for in an actor? Obviously, resume and experience. Suitability to the role. But what is also marketable is distinctiveness. Memorableness in appearance or voice.
It's not always the handsome actors who stay employed. Often it's the reverse. Actors unusually marked or homely may find roles not available to others. For example:
Ron Perlman. One of my favorite actors, beginning with his role on the TV series "Beauty and the Beast." Liked him in "City of Lost Children" too. Haven't seen the "Hellboy" series.
Richard Lynch, burn victim, who found himself more in demand after his accident than before. Arch villain of the B movies.
Tommy Flanagan, the recipient of a "glasgow smile" as gangsters slashed his mouth; you will remember from "Gladiator." "300," and "Braveheart," among others. I don't know if plastic surgery could hide his scars but if so, he'd probably have more trouble finding work.
Billy Drago, who is almost handsome in an eerie psychotic bent way. Like Lynch, he has made a comfortable living playing psychotic, homicidal bad guys. Remember him as the hitman in "The Untouchables"?
Dyrk Ashton, who has a hell of a resume in the theater and movie business and sometimes, thanks partly to his unique appearance, acts. Check out his myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/dyrkkhan
We might also mention Danny DeVito, John Malkovich, Richard Kiel, and Christopher Walken. Many others. I'll try to add them as I think of them.
ADDED--
Point being that what keeps you employed as an actor is not so much a pretty face which are a dollar a dozen with inflation, but a distinctive memorable face that fits in with the characters being played.
It's not always the handsome actors who stay employed. Often it's the reverse. Actors unusually marked or homely may find roles not available to others. For example:
Ron Perlman. One of my favorite actors, beginning with his role on the TV series "Beauty and the Beast." Liked him in "City of Lost Children" too. Haven't seen the "Hellboy" series.
Richard Lynch, burn victim, who found himself more in demand after his accident than before. Arch villain of the B movies.
Tommy Flanagan, the recipient of a "glasgow smile" as gangsters slashed his mouth; you will remember from "Gladiator." "300," and "Braveheart," among others. I don't know if plastic surgery could hide his scars but if so, he'd probably have more trouble finding work.
Billy Drago, who is almost handsome in an eerie psychotic bent way. Like Lynch, he has made a comfortable living playing psychotic, homicidal bad guys. Remember him as the hitman in "The Untouchables"?
Dyrk Ashton, who has a hell of a resume in the theater and movie business and sometimes, thanks partly to his unique appearance, acts. Check out his myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/dyrkkhan
We might also mention Danny DeVito, John Malkovich, Richard Kiel, and Christopher Walken. Many others. I'll try to add them as I think of them.
ADDED--
Point being that what keeps you employed as an actor is not so much a pretty face which are a dollar a dozen with inflation, but a distinctive memorable face that fits in with the characters being played.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Eyeglasses Rant
Who's a good optometrist? Where is a good place to buy glasses?
As for optomotrists, I've been to a half dozen starting with Craig Wallace years ago and have no complaints with any. Eyeglasses are a whole other story.
Many complaints are about the frames. Overpriced, mis-labeled junk.
Perhaps the best looking frames I ever bought were some preppie-looking Geoffrey Beene tortoiseshell plastic frames. Had them a month and stooped over to pick something up, brushed the frames against the handle of a lawnmower, and the glasses fell off my face in two pieces. Problem was, the plastic consisted of differently colored resins (tortoiseshell, duh), and the frames tended to break on the lines where the resins were inadequately bonded. I explained this at the place where I bought them; they didn't buy my reasoning that the frames were defective; had to buy new ones, which lasted six months with care before breaking in exactly the same place.
Super glue didn't work for me. I stuck the glasses back together by heating a length of paperclip red hot and mashing the glasses halves back together on that. Not pretty, but functional.
My current frames are metal. One pair was labeled "Titanium." Guess I was taken in by that label, because they sure weren't titanium in color. Nor in durability. They are corroding on my face. I have to take sandpaper and sand off the corrosion to keep the temples from wearing grooves in my skin. Another pair bought at the same time was labeled "Marine." I imagined this was an allusion to their durability under salt-water conditions. Nah! The temple piece corroded in two, and I had to splint it by slipping on part of the ink tube from a ball point pen. Then the hinge broke.
Been shopping for frames online. After my experiences, I want either of two materials, nylon or stainless steel. I looked up "stainless steel" at Frames Direct and found a line called "Casino Stainless Steel." In the description, the frame material is stated to be ... plastic. Stainless steel plastic.
No listing found for nylon. But nylon frames have been used by those in the military and by athletes. If you are jumping out of an airplane or kicking doors on a SWAT mission, or competing in the decathlon, you don't wear ordinary crummy glasses frames.
Lenses. My last glasses were bought at Eyeglass World, where I was guaranteed fast service, 24 hours, something like that. Turned out, they had to send the Rx to Austin or Houston or someplace and it took weeks. When the glasses got in, I checked the lines of the trifocals and found they were not in a straight line, in fact, one lens was turned about 35 degrees in the frame and the other about 20 degrees the other way. I sent them back. Waited another couple of weeks. Checked the new lenses, same thing, had to return them. After six weeks to two months, I got two pairs of glasses I could live with, not perfect, but acceptable. Until the frames started to decompose.
I wonder though: about those bifocals and trifocals without lines-- is that a way of hiding errors in the way the lenses are ground? How many eyeglass wearers are going around unaware that the reason they don't like their glasses is because the inset lenses are at the wrong angle? You can test this by moving your head horizontally while looking at a small object.
And there can be errors within a lens. Years ago, I discovered that by looking at an object and moving my head the object would "jump," because of a blip in the lens where the grind was not uniform. The lady at the optical company was not happy, but did replace the lens. Since then, I've checked each pair for "blips."
The other day I broke a lens that fell out of the frame. Glass lenses, breaking them is not news, like a dog biting a man. But this lens was plastic. Didn't know plastic lenses would break straight across like that.
Then there is the service. Years ago, I would be fitted by a lady who was not afraid to get close to my face and microadjust everything without being told. We're talking face to face, breath to breath, eye to eye; it was like being on a date. Now, the young ladies just hand me the glasses and ask me how they fit and stay well away from my face and my person (Is it bad breath? That I hadn't bathed in a week? Because I forgot to shave that day? Am out of deoderant? Or just old and unattractive? Bet Pierce Brosnan gets his glasses fitted right). If I can communicate a problem, they grudgingly bend and twist and hand the glasses back to me as though ridding themselves of something distasetful. And wanting to be rid of something even more distasteful.
When a pair of new Wal-Mart purchased glasses broke on me, I went back to the place where I bought them and was ignored by three employees who were busy discussing something among themselves. Disgusted I went to a different Wal-Mart and encountered a quite different employee, who took care of my problem with concern and speed.
As for optomotrists, I've been to a half dozen starting with Craig Wallace years ago and have no complaints with any. Eyeglasses are a whole other story.
Many complaints are about the frames. Overpriced, mis-labeled junk.
Perhaps the best looking frames I ever bought were some preppie-looking Geoffrey Beene tortoiseshell plastic frames. Had them a month and stooped over to pick something up, brushed the frames against the handle of a lawnmower, and the glasses fell off my face in two pieces. Problem was, the plastic consisted of differently colored resins (tortoiseshell, duh), and the frames tended to break on the lines where the resins were inadequately bonded. I explained this at the place where I bought them; they didn't buy my reasoning that the frames were defective; had to buy new ones, which lasted six months with care before breaking in exactly the same place.
Super glue didn't work for me. I stuck the glasses back together by heating a length of paperclip red hot and mashing the glasses halves back together on that. Not pretty, but functional.
My current frames are metal. One pair was labeled "Titanium." Guess I was taken in by that label, because they sure weren't titanium in color. Nor in durability. They are corroding on my face. I have to take sandpaper and sand off the corrosion to keep the temples from wearing grooves in my skin. Another pair bought at the same time was labeled "Marine." I imagined this was an allusion to their durability under salt-water conditions. Nah! The temple piece corroded in two, and I had to splint it by slipping on part of the ink tube from a ball point pen. Then the hinge broke.
Been shopping for frames online. After my experiences, I want either of two materials, nylon or stainless steel. I looked up "stainless steel" at Frames Direct and found a line called "Casino Stainless Steel." In the description, the frame material is stated to be ... plastic. Stainless steel plastic.
No listing found for nylon. But nylon frames have been used by those in the military and by athletes. If you are jumping out of an airplane or kicking doors on a SWAT mission, or competing in the decathlon, you don't wear ordinary crummy glasses frames.
Lenses. My last glasses were bought at Eyeglass World, where I was guaranteed fast service, 24 hours, something like that. Turned out, they had to send the Rx to Austin or Houston or someplace and it took weeks. When the glasses got in, I checked the lines of the trifocals and found they were not in a straight line, in fact, one lens was turned about 35 degrees in the frame and the other about 20 degrees the other way. I sent them back. Waited another couple of weeks. Checked the new lenses, same thing, had to return them. After six weeks to two months, I got two pairs of glasses I could live with, not perfect, but acceptable. Until the frames started to decompose.
I wonder though: about those bifocals and trifocals without lines-- is that a way of hiding errors in the way the lenses are ground? How many eyeglass wearers are going around unaware that the reason they don't like their glasses is because the inset lenses are at the wrong angle? You can test this by moving your head horizontally while looking at a small object.
And there can be errors within a lens. Years ago, I discovered that by looking at an object and moving my head the object would "jump," because of a blip in the lens where the grind was not uniform. The lady at the optical company was not happy, but did replace the lens. Since then, I've checked each pair for "blips."
The other day I broke a lens that fell out of the frame. Glass lenses, breaking them is not news, like a dog biting a man. But this lens was plastic. Didn't know plastic lenses would break straight across like that.
Then there is the service. Years ago, I would be fitted by a lady who was not afraid to get close to my face and microadjust everything without being told. We're talking face to face, breath to breath, eye to eye; it was like being on a date. Now, the young ladies just hand me the glasses and ask me how they fit and stay well away from my face and my person (Is it bad breath? That I hadn't bathed in a week? Because I forgot to shave that day? Am out of deoderant? Or just old and unattractive? Bet Pierce Brosnan gets his glasses fitted right). If I can communicate a problem, they grudgingly bend and twist and hand the glasses back to me as though ridding themselves of something distasetful. And wanting to be rid of something even more distasteful.
When a pair of new Wal-Mart purchased glasses broke on me, I went back to the place where I bought them and was ignored by three employees who were busy discussing something among themselves. Disgusted I went to a different Wal-Mart and encountered a quite different employee, who took care of my problem with concern and speed.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Outdoor Goals, a Continually Updated List
The Ultimate:
Kayak the Napali Coast, Kauai, Hawaii. Nice to do this in two days, camping in Napali one night. Or longer. Afraid someone would steal the beached kayak though, during exploration of Na'Pali.
Hike into Na'Pali from Hanalei. camp one nite in Na'Pali.
Camno de Santiago de la Compostela Pilgrimmage. a/k/a The Way of St. James. Preferably starting in France, possibly at Paris, crossing the Pyrenees, on foot, though by bicycle would be acceptable to me, if not traditionalists. Months. This is the real ultimate.
Hiking in Northern India and Nepal. Better than paying $50k to a company for a chance of summiting Everest, imo.
Kayak along Baja in the Gulf of California. For example Puerto Penasco to Cabo. Or a shorter route.
Closer:
Cross Grand Canyon from South to North Rim and back.
Barranca del Cobre, Chih., Mexico. Hiking in the canyons. Train ride. (How's the gang activity there?)
Zion NP.
Gila NF. Snow Lake again, and somewhere else. See some elk.
Climb Picacho Peak, Az.
Hike length of Arivaipa Canyon, Az. Easy 2 day walk. Plan was to have someone bound for Phoenix to see a football game drop me off at one entrance, then pick me up at the other on the way back. Have to coordinate with Az authorities though, for permit.
In Phoenix: Squaw Peak, Camelback, South Mountains Park. Never made it up Camelback; walking shoes started slipping off on steep rock so I quit.
Not Far and Doable:
Quitaque Rails to Trails ride, about 64 miles one way.
Hikes in Caprock Canyons SP.
High point Guadalupe Peak, GMNP.
Hike in Bowl, GMNP.
Visit a small cave with restricted access, Carlsbad Caverns NP.
South Rim in one day, BBNP.
Drive the jeep trails near the river, BBNP.
Various short hikes I haven't done, BBNP.
See Sitting Bull Falls and Hidden Valley, off 137, N of GMNP.
Highpoint Wheeler Peak, NM.
Summit Sierra Blanca, near Ruidoso, NM.
Wichita Mtns Wildlife Reserve, Oklahoma. Hike some trails, see some animals.
Go up Quartz Mtn., N of Altus OK.
Kayak the Napali Coast, Kauai, Hawaii. Nice to do this in two days, camping in Napali one night. Or longer. Afraid someone would steal the beached kayak though, during exploration of Na'Pali.
Hike into Na'Pali from Hanalei. camp one nite in Na'Pali.
Camno de Santiago de la Compostela Pilgrimmage. a/k/a The Way of St. James. Preferably starting in France, possibly at Paris, crossing the Pyrenees, on foot, though by bicycle would be acceptable to me, if not traditionalists. Months. This is the real ultimate.
Hiking in Northern India and Nepal. Better than paying $50k to a company for a chance of summiting Everest, imo.
Kayak along Baja in the Gulf of California. For example Puerto Penasco to Cabo. Or a shorter route.
Closer:
Cross Grand Canyon from South to North Rim and back.
Barranca del Cobre, Chih., Mexico. Hiking in the canyons. Train ride. (How's the gang activity there?)
Zion NP.
Gila NF. Snow Lake again, and somewhere else. See some elk.
Climb Picacho Peak, Az.
Hike length of Arivaipa Canyon, Az. Easy 2 day walk. Plan was to have someone bound for Phoenix to see a football game drop me off at one entrance, then pick me up at the other on the way back. Have to coordinate with Az authorities though, for permit.
In Phoenix: Squaw Peak, Camelback, South Mountains Park. Never made it up Camelback; walking shoes started slipping off on steep rock so I quit.
Not Far and Doable:
Quitaque Rails to Trails ride, about 64 miles one way.
Hikes in Caprock Canyons SP.
High point Guadalupe Peak, GMNP.
Hike in Bowl, GMNP.
Visit a small cave with restricted access, Carlsbad Caverns NP.
South Rim in one day, BBNP.
Drive the jeep trails near the river, BBNP.
Various short hikes I haven't done, BBNP.
See Sitting Bull Falls and Hidden Valley, off 137, N of GMNP.
Highpoint Wheeler Peak, NM.
Summit Sierra Blanca, near Ruidoso, NM.
Wichita Mtns Wildlife Reserve, Oklahoma. Hike some trails, see some animals.
Go up Quartz Mtn., N of Altus OK.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Pretty Good Day -- Except...
A pretty good day today; got on Nehi, my '95 Raleigh mountain bike for a 10 mile round trip to the grocery store where I found all the groceries I could pack at good prices, rode back with plastic bags hanging from my handlebars, did some dishes, baked two cakes, wrote checks for the bills that are due next week, got on Miko my fast 2004 XC mountain bike to go mail the bills, followed by a challenging ride in the canyon, through Mackenzie Park to the golf course, then back along Canyon Drive to circle the lake. About a 9 mile ride, good interval training. Tired when I got in, but pleasantly tired, with the breath coming easy and the body relaxed.
Inclines that had me using the granny ring a week ago I rode on the middle ring today. Much stronger now. The hundred squats under a 40 lb barbell are paying off.
Then I drove my mother to pay still another bill, at Home Depot, stopped once to shop and back home.
Where I found a cat, one of those I've been feeding, dying alongside a bush. Don't know why; no blood, but I suspect foul play by the kid next door, or his dog; a cat we had for 14 years, that had weathered two record cold snaps this year, disappeared last month, no trace. This cat was one of those born last year, granddaughters of a heterochromatic stray that left us four kittensto feed before disappearing herself. Don't know if this one was that runty kitten that was friendly to me or a sibling. But I stroked it and told it I was sorry. Too far gone to respond. Then with post hole diggers and shovel I dug its grave, came back to find it quite dead, and then had a little funeral, attended by me and another cat, Shadow the chartroux, that was wondering what was going on.
The city forbids the burial of pets in the yard. Stupid law. If there is any place a pet ought to be buried, it is where it lived and played and died. So my yards are cemeteries. Which I think quite fitting. I am surrounded by ghosts and memories.
Except for that, a pretty good day so far.
Inclines that had me using the granny ring a week ago I rode on the middle ring today. Much stronger now. The hundred squats under a 40 lb barbell are paying off.
Then I drove my mother to pay still another bill, at Home Depot, stopped once to shop and back home.
Where I found a cat, one of those I've been feeding, dying alongside a bush. Don't know why; no blood, but I suspect foul play by the kid next door, or his dog; a cat we had for 14 years, that had weathered two record cold snaps this year, disappeared last month, no trace. This cat was one of those born last year, granddaughters of a heterochromatic stray that left us four kittensto feed before disappearing herself. Don't know if this one was that runty kitten that was friendly to me or a sibling. But I stroked it and told it I was sorry. Too far gone to respond. Then with post hole diggers and shovel I dug its grave, came back to find it quite dead, and then had a little funeral, attended by me and another cat, Shadow the chartroux, that was wondering what was going on.
The city forbids the burial of pets in the yard. Stupid law. If there is any place a pet ought to be buried, it is where it lived and played and died. So my yards are cemeteries. Which I think quite fitting. I am surrounded by ghosts and memories.
Except for that, a pretty good day so far.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Good Writers
If Jenkins and LeHaye are not good writers, who are?
In the genre of the biblical thriller, Daniel Easterman stands out. He has written several books that will keep you up at night, wondering what happens next, books that resonate with strange places and archaeology and history and atmospheric places and events. Dan Brown is fairly good too, though I think he is way over the top in one or two books and in "The DaVinci Code," I was disappointed with the villain and thought the whole thing a steal from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Brown's best book in my opinion is Digital Fortress.
The best writers in English? James Michener, Annie Dillard, Lewis Thomas, Rachel Carson, Loren Eiseley, George Orwell, Manly Wade Wellman, Arthur C. Clarke. There are many others. When I say "best writers" I don't mean necessarily in plot or characterization or subject, but simply in the ability to use the English language with extreme clarity and elegance. To achieve poetry in prose. To best use the thousand year legacy of written English.
It has taken me years of reading and thinking about the use of English to be able to put together that list.
In the genre of the biblical thriller, Daniel Easterman stands out. He has written several books that will keep you up at night, wondering what happens next, books that resonate with strange places and archaeology and history and atmospheric places and events. Dan Brown is fairly good too, though I think he is way over the top in one or two books and in "The DaVinci Code," I was disappointed with the villain and thought the whole thing a steal from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Brown's best book in my opinion is Digital Fortress.
The best writers in English? James Michener, Annie Dillard, Lewis Thomas, Rachel Carson, Loren Eiseley, George Orwell, Manly Wade Wellman, Arthur C. Clarke. There are many others. When I say "best writers" I don't mean necessarily in plot or characterization or subject, but simply in the ability to use the English language with extreme clarity and elegance. To achieve poetry in prose. To best use the thousand year legacy of written English.
It has taken me years of reading and thinking about the use of English to be able to put together that list.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Book Review: Left Behind
A few days ago, having read up about all of the light fiction I had at hand, I picked up a book I had gotten in a grab-bag for a friend. LeHaye and Jenkins, Left Behind.
One of my favorite genres, by the way, is what is sometimes called "biblical thrillers" or "biblical fiction." Daniel Easterman has written a number of pretty good books in that genre, which also includes some very bad books.
As a reader of sci-fi and fantasy as well as biblical fiction, I am used to parking disbelief outside upon entering. Not a problem for a good read.
"Left Behind" is not that good a read. There are characters who you get to know on a simple one or two dimensional level and you want to read on and see what happens to them. That plus the fact that the books are labeled as "Christian fiction" is the appeal.
That they are "Christian fiction" is a mislabeling. Nowhere do the books state "WARNING: this series is based on Biblical interpretation by a fundamentalist Christian group called Dispensational Premillennialists." Unless the reader understands this, or is well-versed in Bible, he or she may think this is mainstream Christian thinking. It isn't.
I was taught Bible at a Church of Christ college, from a fundamentalist viewpoint. My prof attacked premillenialism sharply, and believed that much of the Revelation of John applied to the Roman world of the first century. More mainstream Christian interpretations differ even more from Dispensational Premillenialism.
So the Left Behind series is actually a way of indoctrinating those who are already Christians with Dispensational Premillenialist thinking. The series has no appeal to agnostics or atheists or those of other religions. It's a kind of intra-Christian cannabalism. ("Gosh, I never heard that at my church!" which makes one a target for Jenkins and LeHaye.)
My problem with "Left Behind" as a novel is --
(1) The shallowness of the characters, though the main two characters have some effort spent on development. Finding out what happens to a half dozen or so characters is 99.9% of the interest of the book.
(2) The fact that all is a preachment. If you want that, there is a better story in Pilgrim's Progress.
(3) Key events in the book do not follow. The most vital plot elements "just happen" with minimal logic to support them. For example, how the heck did all nations of the world go to one government, one currency, and one leader, without a long and bloody fight? The novel totally glosses over this development, only saying that the shock of the rapture unnerved everyone to the extent that they were all willing to turn to one charasmatic leader. That was enough to outweigh nationalism and sound economics?
(4) There is little real world detail, which is a characteristic of hurried or unskilled writers.
(5) All of those paranoid elements are here that you've been laughing at for years when brought up by your crazy neighbor, like suspicion of the UN, of peace movements, of yielding of national soveriegnty, of disarmament, that make such strange bedfellows with the Christian religion. Deja vu all through. If you've been around, you know this plotline before it happens.
(6) "Left Behind" is another pre-2000 attempt to exploit the fears of the coming millenium. Remember those?
(7) The writing style is poor. Compared to adult level novels on the best seller lists, Left Behind is junior grade. Why do I say that? What is good style? Let me list the ways that the writing --apart from irrationality or unbelievability of plot-- of Left Behind is badly done.
a. Often there is language that is vague or imprecise--or a word that is misused. Evidences of very hurried writing and minimal editing.
b. Absence of detail. Too much detail annoys the reader. Not enough leads to a sense that what is being read is a summary and not the book itself. So it is here. It is a wonderful thing when an author knows all about places and subjects, or when the author is able to fake it successfully. (An example of the latter was Len Deighton's first novels, when he faked the details about British intelligence and espionage in general.) But for the order of the apocalypse, Jenkins gives no impression that he has any special or technical knowledge about anything. All the scenes are cardboard, and if you lean against a wall, you are likely to topple over the set.
c. Is the reader spoon fed information from an all-knowing narrator, or allowed to draw his own conclusions from dialog or events? There is dialog in Left Behind, but it is stilted and unreal, and the reader is told what happens and what to think of it.
(8) Considering quality of book and paper, Left Behind ought to be sold for under $5 a copy. That it was apparently sold for $12.95 in the mid-1990s was a travesty. If the series sold as many copies as claimed, omeone made a lot of money off this.
Am I being too hard on these books? No. I bought a sack full of them a public library sale for $1, about .08 each, for paperbacks in hardly read condition. I wouldn't pay more.
One of my favorite genres, by the way, is what is sometimes called "biblical thrillers" or "biblical fiction." Daniel Easterman has written a number of pretty good books in that genre, which also includes some very bad books.
As a reader of sci-fi and fantasy as well as biblical fiction, I am used to parking disbelief outside upon entering. Not a problem for a good read.
"Left Behind" is not that good a read. There are characters who you get to know on a simple one or two dimensional level and you want to read on and see what happens to them. That plus the fact that the books are labeled as "Christian fiction" is the appeal.
That they are "Christian fiction" is a mislabeling. Nowhere do the books state "WARNING: this series is based on Biblical interpretation by a fundamentalist Christian group called Dispensational Premillennialists." Unless the reader understands this, or is well-versed in Bible, he or she may think this is mainstream Christian thinking. It isn't.
I was taught Bible at a Church of Christ college, from a fundamentalist viewpoint. My prof attacked premillenialism sharply, and believed that much of the Revelation of John applied to the Roman world of the first century. More mainstream Christian interpretations differ even more from Dispensational Premillenialism.
So the Left Behind series is actually a way of indoctrinating those who are already Christians with Dispensational Premillenialist thinking. The series has no appeal to agnostics or atheists or those of other religions. It's a kind of intra-Christian cannabalism. ("Gosh, I never heard that at my church!" which makes one a target for Jenkins and LeHaye.)
My problem with "Left Behind" as a novel is --
(1) The shallowness of the characters, though the main two characters have some effort spent on development. Finding out what happens to a half dozen or so characters is 99.9% of the interest of the book.
(2) The fact that all is a preachment. If you want that, there is a better story in Pilgrim's Progress.
(3) Key events in the book do not follow. The most vital plot elements "just happen" with minimal logic to support them. For example, how the heck did all nations of the world go to one government, one currency, and one leader, without a long and bloody fight? The novel totally glosses over this development, only saying that the shock of the rapture unnerved everyone to the extent that they were all willing to turn to one charasmatic leader. That was enough to outweigh nationalism and sound economics?
(4) There is little real world detail, which is a characteristic of hurried or unskilled writers.
(5) All of those paranoid elements are here that you've been laughing at for years when brought up by your crazy neighbor, like suspicion of the UN, of peace movements, of yielding of national soveriegnty, of disarmament, that make such strange bedfellows with the Christian religion. Deja vu all through. If you've been around, you know this plotline before it happens.
(6) "Left Behind" is another pre-2000 attempt to exploit the fears of the coming millenium. Remember those?
(7) The writing style is poor. Compared to adult level novels on the best seller lists, Left Behind is junior grade. Why do I say that? What is good style? Let me list the ways that the writing --apart from irrationality or unbelievability of plot-- of Left Behind is badly done.
a. Often there is language that is vague or imprecise--or a word that is misused. Evidences of very hurried writing and minimal editing.
b. Absence of detail. Too much detail annoys the reader. Not enough leads to a sense that what is being read is a summary and not the book itself. So it is here. It is a wonderful thing when an author knows all about places and subjects, or when the author is able to fake it successfully. (An example of the latter was Len Deighton's first novels, when he faked the details about British intelligence and espionage in general.) But for the order of the apocalypse, Jenkins gives no impression that he has any special or technical knowledge about anything. All the scenes are cardboard, and if you lean against a wall, you are likely to topple over the set.
c. Is the reader spoon fed information from an all-knowing narrator, or allowed to draw his own conclusions from dialog or events? There is dialog in Left Behind, but it is stilted and unreal, and the reader is told what happens and what to think of it.
(8) Considering quality of book and paper, Left Behind ought to be sold for under $5 a copy. That it was apparently sold for $12.95 in the mid-1990s was a travesty. If the series sold as many copies as claimed, omeone made a lot of money off this.
Am I being too hard on these books? No. I bought a sack full of them a public library sale for $1, about .08 each, for paperbacks in hardly read condition. I wouldn't pay more.
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