“You could tell by the way that he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him.” —A Confederacy of Dunces
The first proof copies of Griswoldville arrived today! I'm thrilled with how they look and can't wait to complete the proofing and correction process to get these out to y'all. Enjoy the mini-gallery below as a bit of a sneak peek. More news to come!
On my drive back from Georgia this weekend I listened to a two-part podcast series from the CBC on the Icelandic sagas, "A Map of the Heart." Part I provided some background on the settlement of Iceland during the Viking Age and the culture of the people who lived there, as well as where the sagas came from and how well they reflect that culture. The second part recapped some points from the first and spent a lot of time on an in-depth look at Egils saga, the story of Egill Skallagrimsson, one of the greastest works in the saga literature and one of the inspirations for my novel No Snakes in Iceland.
I hope there will be more, because there are so many other great sagas—among my other favorites are Gisli Sursson's Saga, The Saga of Grettir the Strong, and Njal's Saga—and these two episodes were excellent. The CBC being Canadian, I hope they're working their way toward covering the Vinland sagas; those are fascinating bits of history.
You can listen to Part I here and Part II here. They're worth your while, especially if you've not yet had an introduction to the sweeping, dramatic, but deeply local and personal world of the sagas.
From GKC's Illustrated London News column, March 9, 1929:
“People generally quarrel because they cannot argue. And it is extraordinary to notice how few people in the modern world can argue. This is why there are so many quarrels, breaking out again and again, and never coming to any natural end.”
Chesterton relished debate, and enjoyed deep and lasting friendships with a number of people diametrically opposed to his beliefs. Unsurprisingly, the difference between argument and mere quarreling is a topic he returned to over and over again.
From What's Wrong with the World, published nearly two decades before the above quotation: "If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence." From his Autobiography, published after his death in 1936, reflecting on his younger brother Cecil, who died in World War I: "I am glad to think that through all those years we never stopped arguing; and we never once quarreled." And, as an aside:
“Perhaps the principal objection to a quarrel is that it interrupts an argument.”
Food for thought. Chesterton, as usual, being relevant from beyond the grave.
Last week I had the pleasure of joining Aaron, Tombstone, and Just Jeff for two segments of their Front Porch Show, the weekly podcast about everything. Click through to listen at their website, or one of the several podcasting services they air on including Spotify and iTunes, or see the embedded Stitcher link below. We talked about historical movies—what makes them good, what makes them bad—my books, and especially what the life and death of Cicero can teach us about virtue in politics today (with all due caution, of course). Had a great time. Thanks for having me on the show!
From The Whig Interpretation of History, Butterfield's must-read 1931 historiographical essay:
“[T]he chief aim of the historian is the elucidation of the unlikenesses between past and present . . . It is not for him to stress and magnify the similarities between one age and another, and he is riding after a whole flock of misapprehensions if he goes to hunt for the present in the past.”
Or, in the oft-repeated saw of L.P. Hartley, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." For an example of the "flock of misapprehensions" a present-minded investigator can run into, see my Historical Movie Monday post on Kingdom of Heaven.
This summer has proven unexpectedly busy. If you listened to my guest appearance on Impolitic Podcast last week, you'll remember that Historical Movie Monday has taken a bit of a hiatus. It will return, but each post is time consuming to research and write and in addition I'm teaching summer classes for the first time in four years, spending the weekends hustling back and forth on various family vacations, and—not insignificantly—I've been working hard to complete revisions on my latest novel.
And the revisions have been going well! So today I'm pleased to present the cover of my soon to be released novel Griswoldville.
The story unfolds over the course of the Civil War, as a young boy and his family slowly adjust to the absences of fathers and uncles, the pinch of inflation and government requisition, and finally service in the militia. The description of the novel from the back cover:
Madison Co., Georgia, 1864—14-year old Georgie Wax has spent the three years since his father left for the war looking after the family farm. WIth his mother and young brothers, Georgie and his grandfather Lafayette "Fate" Eschenbach have brought in the crops every fall, slaughtered the hogs every winter, and kept the farm running as the faraway war stretches on longer and longer and his father seems ever farther and farther away.
But when the enemy reaches their own state, Georgie and his grandfather are called up to the militia to protect Georgia against the invaders. Drilled mercilessly, mocked for lack of experience, and put to work at manual labor, Georgie finds war isn't the adventure he imagined it to be. Only with Atlanta fallen and the enemy on the move will Georgie, Fate, and their fellow Georgia militiamen find a chance to prove themselves and save their homes from destruction—at a railside factory town called Griswoldville.
The novel should be available before the end of summer. I'm pretty excited about this one, and I hope y'all will be, too. Stay tuned for more announcements!
Last week I was honored to be invited onto my old classmate Paul Matzko's Impolitic Podcast. Paul's show offers up "friendly arguments" between a libertarian (himself) and a socialist (his co-host, Sean). Paul asked me (a conservative) to substitute for Sean this week and we had a fun, freewheeling conversation about my books, historical fiction, World War II as "the Good War," Charles Portis, conspiracism, the Babylon Bee, and the soft censorship of the internet age.
You can listen by subscribing to Impolitic on iTunes, clicking through to the Impolitic blog, or listening via Stitcher below. Enjoy, and thanks again, Paul!
Alan Jacobs, a scholar and writer I particularly admire, has an interesting post on Tolkien and the possibility—nay, inevitability—of healing in his works. In discussing the way that "all victories over evil are contingent and limited and temporary . . . and the forgetfulness of all the races of Middle Earth tends to reinforce those limits," Jacobs quotes Gandalf from near the end of The Lord of the Rings:
“Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
This is a frank, humble assessment of what people can do about evil. This has been on my mind a lot recently, both for longstanding reasons of my own and as I've been working over a post on the resilience of Marxism as an ideology despite its body count. Even beyond Marxism or leftism generally, people of all political persuasions tend to take concrete political or legal problems and abstract and universalize them immediately—as step one of the debate. All problems therefore become existential problems. All mistakes or disagreements become signs of fatal bad faith. All problems become problems that threaten the very fabric of the universe. You don't have to look far to find examples.
Gandalf's words here also happen to harmonize with a theme I've been mulling over for a work-in-progress: a novel about guilt and original sin, "a story with no good guy" as I've described it to a friend. What do to about evil—not just "systemic" evil, the activist concern du jour, or evil as it exists in the whole world, but evil in my own life? That's uncomfortably close. But a humble recognition that we can't solve all problems is the first step to solving some of them. Rather than aiming high, at unachievable universalist goals, find an evil in your neighborhood, something you can actually do something about, and face it. Or, as Admiral McRaven and Jordan Peterson have put it recently, "Make your bed" and "Clean your room."
Finally, also harmonizing with Gandalf, is this challenge from St. Paul that has goaded and bothered me since I rediscovered it last fall:
“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”
Jacobs concludes his post by reflecting on how "tricky" Gandalf's vision is: "neither . . . succumb to despair (like Denethor) nor indulge the presumptuous delusion that one’s victories can be everlasting, but rather . . . live, simply, in hope." If there's a more necessary countercultural message today than "lead a quiet life," "mind your own business," "uproot evil in the fields you know," and "live in hope," I don't know what it is.
Turned this up in a bit of late research for a minor part of Griswoldville.
The novel's protagonist, young Georgie Wax, is consumed with knights and medieval stories and takes a keen interest in heraldry as a result. After being called up to the Georgia militia, he passes hours of boredom trying to create a blazon—or official, formulaic description of a coat of arms—for his unit's battle flag.
Here's the flag's original designer, William Porcher Miles, in a letter to General Beauregard in 1861, describing the heraldic principles in his new design:
Actual Confederate battle flag, not the ones you see flapping behind pickup trucks.
This was my favorite. The three colors of red, white, and blue were preserved in it. It avoided the religious objection about the cross (from the Jews and many Protestant sects), because it did not stand out so conspicuously as if the cross had been placed upright . . .
Besides, in the form I proposed, the cross was more heraldic than ecclesiastical, it being the 'saltire' of heraldry, and significant of strength and progress (from the Latin salto, to leap). The stars ought always to be white, or argent, because they are then blazoned 'proper' (or natural color). Stars, too, show better on an azure field than any other. Blue stars on a white field would not be handsome or appropriate. The 'white edge' (as I term it) to the blue is partly a necessity to prevent what is called 'false blazoning,' or a solecism in heraldry, viz., blazoning color on color, or metal on metal. It would not do to put a blue cross, therefore, on a red field. Hence the white, being metal argent, is put on the red, and the blue put on the white. The introduction of white between the blue and red, adds also much to the brilliancy of the colors, and brings them out in strong relief.
Blazon, saltire, azure, argent—heraldry relies on a vast, arcane vocabulary of largely French origin in a convoluted and rigid syntax meant to preserve the design of a given coat of arms with the permanence of a molecular formula.
Thus, the flag of England is Argent, a cross gules and the flag of Scotland is Azure, a saltire argent. And these are simple blazons. Entertain yourself sometime with more complicated ones.
So here, as a special first look at Griswoldville, is what Georgie comes up with:
Gules, a saltire azure charged with thirteen mullets argent. I was unsure how to account for the fimbriations, the white borders of the cross, and occupied myself for hours sometimes in shifting this subordinary back and forth through my primitive blazon.
It's worth pointing out that the commonly repeated bit of lore that the flag's design stems from the St. Andrew's Cross of Scotland, because of the vast sea of Scots-Irish farmers who supposedly formed the backbone of the Confederate Army, doesn't enter into it. Just good, sound artistic principles within a body of established tradition here—with a few politico-religious considerations thrown in.
Miles's concluding paragraph to Beauregard begins with my favorite line in the letter: "But I am boring you with my pet hobby in the matter of the flag." What amateur vexillologist hasn't said some version of this?
The Greek historian Polybius (c. 200-c. 118 BC) on a stele of the 2nd century BC.
From The Histories, I.35:
“There are two roads to reformation for mankind—one through misfortunes of their own, the other through those of others: the former is the most unmistakable, the latter the less painful.”
The most difficult task I undertake as a history instructor is not preparing tests, lecturing, or even grading essays, but convincing my students that history is worth learning for its own sake—gratuitously, regardless of its "practical value." (There's a sinister phrase we're far too used to.) I don't know how well I have succeeded—the students who come out of my classes loving history usually loved it or were at least interested in it when they arrived—but one "practical" application that persuades at least some of them that history is worth studying is the concept of history as memory.
I introduce this idea at the beginning of every semester with another quotation from the classics, in this case Cicero:
“Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the worth of a man’s life, unless it is interwoven with the memory of ancient things from a greater age?”
To make this more explicit yet, here's the excerpt from Polybius's Histories above in its full context, in which Polybius explains one of his purposes for writing:
I record these things in the hope of benefiting my readers. There are two roads to reformation for mankind—one through misfortunes of their own, the other through those of others: the former is the most unmistakable, the latter the less painful. One should never therefore voluntarily choose the former, for it makes reformation a matter of great difficulty and danger; but we should always look out for the latter, for thereby we can without hurt to ourselves gain a clear view of the best course to pursue. It is this which forces us to consider that the knowledge gained from the study of true history is the best of all educations for practical life. For it is history, and history alone, which, without involving us in actual danger, will mature our judgment and prepare us to take right views, whatever may be the crisis or the posture of affairs.
I've been horribly burned and injured by things and, if my daughter and son, who haven't lived through anything like that yet, will listen to my stories, they don't have to. In the same way, if you can't find anything else to "get out of" history, realize that you can at least learn from others' mistakes and, with wisdom and judicious application to your own life and circumstances, avoid them. History, rightly studied, is acquired maturity.
A bit more practical, realistic, and—I think—moral and hopeful than the grim pragmatism of Santayana's axiom, which has become a modern cliche: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
The evening of Memorial Day I had the chance to see Solo with a friend of mine. I wasn't clamoring to see it, especially since I had intermittently kept up with news of its disastrous production history, so I went in primarily hoping for a few hours of entertainment and a chance to hang out with a friend. My expectations were low.
The movie surprised me—I actually enjoyed it. It's not a perfect film by any means, but it's not the mess I would have predicted based on the behind-the-scenes stories picked up by the Hollywood press. In fact, it's a mostly fun romp through the margins—the Outer Rim?—of a familiar mythic world.
Among the things Solo does well is create the illusion of a shopworn reality, the much-discussed "world building" of internet nerds. The locations feel lived-in, established, as if they could carry on just fine without our visit. This worked well even in minor parts: the woman working in customs on Corellia and the Imperial recruiter both felt like real people with desk jobs and other things to do. There was also a grit to some of the locations that felt welcome, especially after the shiny digital sterility of the prequels. (For all its flaws, Solo is still better than any of those.) I especially liked the muddy dreckworld—which Wookieepedia informs me is Mimban—where Han serves in the Imperial Army. That handful of scenes feels like a glimpse from behind the lines of an actual army at work, and Han's desperation to get out is palpable.
I also liked the western motifs worked into the visuals and the story. The same way Rogue One unpacked and isolated the war movie elements of the original films, Solo pays homage to the western with gambling in dangerous saloons, remote and desolate landscapes, a train-top robbery by a team of bandits, and even the iconic spaghetti western shot of a hand dangling ready by a holster. The film could have done with a little more of this, I think, but I enjoyed it and it meshed surprisingly well with the heist elements of the plot.
The acting is mostly good as well. Woody Harrelson, adding his subtle Texan attitude to the mix, was very good, and Donald Glover's young, pompous Lando was entertaining. Paul Bettany, who was only brought in for the massive reshoots under new director Ron Howard, was good as the villain despite not having much to work with in the way of character.
Finally, it was nice to see Chewbacca in a pretty prominent role, and his chemistry with Han was the best thing about Han in the film. Chewie even got a bit of a dramatic arc involving the sad fate of his people, who the Empire had relocated from their homes as forced labor—Stalin style. The sight of other Wookiees late in the film was unexpectedly moving.
All of these elements made Solo enjoyable. I was entertained. I liked it. But this was in spite of some evident flaws that I have to point out. I'll just list some:
This last point is the wound at the center of the film. Ehrenreich, who supposedly required remedial acting lessons for Howard's reshoots (an exaggeration according to him), is clearly doing his best, but he's just wrong for the part. I didn't believe he was the same Han Solo we've seen before, because I couldn't. I'd be curious to see what another frontrunner for the part, Ansel Elgort, would have done with it.
Those things aside, I still want to emphasize how much I enjoyed Solo. By the end of the first act, as Han and Qi'ra race to escape their home planet, I had bought in. It wasn't without reservation, and the film's flaws still stuck out, but I enjoyed it enough that I was glad to overlook those and take the movie on its own terms. With two "A Star Wars Story" films out now—the first of which I consider a success and this one an interesting if unnecessary and insubstantial bit of backstory—I'm interested to see where future installments go.
Thanks to everyone who picked up a discounted Kindle copy of Dark Full of Enemies over the weekend! I appreciate my readers and hope you all enjoy the book!
For Memorial Day weekend, my World War II adventure Dark Full of Enemies is on Kindle Countdown at Amazon! Today through Monday the Kindle edition is only 99¢.
Dark Full of Enemies is the story of a team of Allied commandos sent into the Arctic night of Norway in December 1943. Tasked with destroying a Nazi-controlled hydroelectric dam, the team leader, Marine Captain Joe McKay, must confront the Germans, mysteriously uncooperative Resistance contacts, the darkness and unforgiving weather, and his own past as he struggles to complete his mission.
Readers have praised Dark Full of Enemies as "an awesome read," "a must read for any and all book lovers everywhere," and "an Alistair MacLean-style, World War 2 commando mission story" that "is simple to the point of poetry."
Read more about the book, more reader praise, and find links to order at the novel's page here, or visit the Kindle edition directly here to order it while it's discounted.
Hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend!
The official site of historian and novelist Jordan M. Poss.
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