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.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
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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