Willamette Sutta. Adamant in Dust. Solid Glory Writs, 2024.

For a shorter review, see Adamant in Dust by Willamette Sutta
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

View all my Goodreads reviews

Adamant in Dust is the first installment of what looks like will be a fantasy story with some scope. Without giving too much away, there is a complicated dynastic plot, a mythical beast, a quest, and a “dark lord” type. While some things have become almost stereotypes in fantasy, Adamant in Dust has a bit of an oriental twist to it.

While many of the main characters are royalty, or royal wannabes, we really take note of Fu Ma (Chinese for “noble mother”), an ageless wise woman with martial skills. She comes from Meiwen, this novel’s orient (“beautiful justice” in Chinese) but she is helping out the more occidental kingdoms of Pennith and Bertingold.

Part of the story involves a quest over a mountain range a little reminiscent of the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West. In that medieval fantasy, the small band of adventurers travel through the Himalayas on their way to India. It seems every mountain has a demon that they have to fight. It is not quite the same in Adamant in Dust, but there are echoes.

In one of the other medieval Chinese romances, The Tale of the Three Kingdoms, there are a series of foreign invaders who attack from the north. So it seems here as well. These foreigners in the Three Kingdoms look really alien—some have yellow eyes, some have eyes with two pupils. So some of the invaders here have yellow eyes as well. (When I was a kid, there was a western novel called Yellow Eyes, but it was about a mountain lion.)

Adamant in Dust contains both contemporary politics and ancient prophecies that the main characters have to deal with. The King of Bertingold has two daughters and no sons. The King of neighboring Pennith has a son Teyrnon, his only heir. Both kings would like their offspring to marry. This would strengthen both kingdoms, maybe like when James of Scotland became King of England. But there is also an ancient prophecy (Fu Ma seems to understand these better than most) that promises a kind of golden age when a marriage between the two kingdoms takes place.

Such things are never easily accomplished. Princess Peregrine, the older of the two sisters, simply is not attracted to Teyrnan. Sadira, the younger of the two princesses, says she is willing to marry Teyrnan, but then she elopes or is abducted by the handsome knight Sir Launfal. (Did Helen of Troy go willingly with Paris? Depends on whom you read…) Oh, yeah, Launfal sometimes rides a wyvern.

Such creatures are the creation of Malchor, the evil ancient ruler in this tale. He lives in the frozen far north and has kept somewhat to himself for a number of generations, but seems intent to not only thwart the plans of the two kingdoms, but to begin a conquest of the other lands in the world of Miran, the continent or planet where our story takes place.

An enchanted Silmaril-like stone gives Malchor some of his power. Each king had such a stone, and so did Malchor. If someone could combine the power of all the stones (there were at least four), he or she could have true supernatural authority. Some of the stones had been broken, and fragments apparently show up from time to time. Others seem to have disappeared.

How much does Fu Ma know? What are Launfal’s motives? Will the prince marry at all? These remain to be discovered. Once we get past the introductory material, there is a lot of action. The battles are described clearly and strategies are planned out plainly, even if they do not always work. (The fog of war is real here.)

Fantasy readers will get a kick out of this, and Adamant in Dust may even pick up a few fans of historical romance. There are certainly some reminders of Lt. Wickham in Sir Launfal. Whether Teyrnan finds true love remains to be seen. Peregrine seems more impressed with Adlaren, the prince’s clever and courageous bodyguard.

The author has kindly included a Glossary of Characters at the end. Unfortunately, I did not know this until I had finished the book because I was reading on a Kindle. There are a myriad of names—though only about a dozen are really important. For Kindle readers, I recommend finding the glossary and bookmarking it so that you can consult it if necessary. For those with a paper pages, leaf through the book to locate the glossary. Most readers will find it comes in handy.

Geoffrey Bache Smith. A Spring Harvest. 1918; Edited by J. R. R. Tolkien, Project Gutenberg, 2015.
C. S. Lewis. Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics. 1919; Project Gutenberg, 2013.

Trick question: What is the first book published by J. R. R. Tolkien? By 1918 Tolkien had published some essays and articles—and had already begun keeping notes on what would become Middle Earth. However, the first book he had published was not of his own writings, but a collection of poems by his friend Geoffrey Bache Smith, who was killed in World War I.

Similarly, C. S. Lewis’s first book was a collection of his own poems, many inspired (or perhaps motivated is a better word) by his own experiences in the war. This was before his conversion to Christianity, but we already see things in his content that would appear in different ways in his later writings.

Bache’s A Spring Harvest contains a number of very good poems. This reviewer can see why someone would want to have these poems published. Today, Bache is more of a literary footnote for two reasons: (1) as already noted, he was a skilled writer associated with Tolkien, and (2) he was one of many “war poets” who was lost in the Great War. I confess that I only found out about him when I recently read A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War.

A number of poems in Smith’s collection have Arthurian themes. It seems as though he was seeking noble character even in the horrors of war—a theme of that book just mentioned. Yes, The Lord of the Rings trilogy contains that, but so do many of the King Arthur stories.

One can see how poems like “Glastonbury” could appeal to a medievalist and fantasist like Tolkien. The actual style is very reminiscent of Tennyson. Indeed, many of his poems, both lyric and narrative sound like they could have been written by Tennyson or be taken from something like Idylls of the King.

Other lyrics such as “A Study” have echoes of Keats with their rich imagery and sensory appeal. Indeed, it has been said that Tennyson is the Victorian Keats. At the same time, the poems also suggest a longing for legendary times in the past. We can almost imagine Tolkien himself being inspired by lines from “The House of Eld”:

Now the old winds are wild about the house,
And the old ghosts cry to me from the air
Of a far isle set in the western sea,
And of the evening sunlight lingering there. (41)

One can almost imagine an elf or human bard singing of the Grey Havens or Numenor…

It does make one wonder what might have been if Smith had survived the war.

Lewis’s Spirits in Bondage has a different tone. Many of these are clearly war poems. There are bloody horrors in some of them, and many have a bitter tone. The first section is titled “The Prison House,” which perhaps alludes to a narrow trench but in many ways describes the whole fallen world.

The first poem in that section is “Satan Speaks.” There is a sense in many of the first poems that there could not be a God because a good God would not allow such evil happen, but there could be devils and bloody pagan gods like Baal and Molech because of what we see around us. His “De Profundis” ends with an appeal to God (if there is one): “Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth.” (201) Bitter? Maybe, but also an honest reckoning of human nature.

If I were going to compare Lewis’s poems to anyone, it would probably be Longfellow. Yes, Longfellow was definitely more upbeat in most of his poetry, but he also was didactic, and so is Lewis. There is not just an image or a story, but there is a lesson in most of these poems.

The other thing that strikes the reader, especially in the third and final part entitled “The Escape,” there is much about looking or longing for some other world. Unlike Smith (or maybe Tolkien himself) it is not a longing for a legendary English heroic past, but a literal different world such as the one that we read about in fairy tales. The third section in particular, if it reads like any other poet, it is Yeats.

Lewis writes in “Hesitation”:

Out of the toiling sea arose
Many a face and form of those
Thin, elemental people dear
Who live beyond our heavy sphere.
And all at once from far and near,
They all held out their arms to me
Crying in their melody
“Leap in! Leap in and take thy fill
Of all the cosmic good and ill,
Be as the Living one that know
Enormous joy, enormous woe…(436)

This has echoes of Yeats’ “The Stolen Child”:

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

As I read these poems I could not help but think that we consider Lewis an Englishman. He wrote in English and taught at Oxford and Cambridge. You cannot get more English than that. Yet he grew up in Northern Ireland. Many of his poems do suggest a Celtic sensibility, one that perhaps we see especially in his Narnia stories, as British as they may seem on the surface.

While these poems are instructive and were worth publishing, most are not as memorable as his prose. It is interesting to note that in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis notes that many mythologies, especially the Celtic and Norse, appealed to him; however; he describes the story of Jesus in the Gospels as a myth, but one that happens to be true. As Ecclesiastes 3:11, tells us, God has put eternity into man’s heart.

Because these books are of poems—lyrics and short narratives, and not novels or nonfiction—they do not take a long time to read. They are instructive certainly to give us an idea of where both Tolkien and Lewis came from, as well letting us meet Geoffrey Bache Smith and wonder about what we may have missed by his untimely death in battle.

N. B. The references to Lewis are Kindle locations, not page numbers.

Gordon Korman. Slugfest. Balzer + Bray, 2024.

For a shorter review see:Slugfest by Gordon Korman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Slugfest is another Gordon Korman funfest. Like many of his novels such as Ungifted, it is a fish out of water story, and much of the humor stems from that.

Summer school at Robinette Middle School is for the people who have problems with their subject. A new state law requires that all students pass eighth grade physical education to enter high school in the fall. The students who did not pass gym class, then, have to take phys ed for summer school. if they want to go on to high school.

Now, this does include some of the usual suspects: Kaden, the brainy, but uncoordinated victim of teasing; Arabella, who proudly has skipped gym for three years; the Fidelio twins, Stuart and Sarah, who spent so much time fighting each other in class that they lost credit for not participating; and practical joker Jesse, who flunked after a prank of his flooded the locker room. The middle schoolers call the summer PE students the slugs: stereotyped as slow and lazy and lacking strength.

But the class also includes two athletes. Cleo broke her foot in a skiing accident and missed too many gym classes while she was in rehab. Because of the seriousness of her injury, she has sworn off sports. And then there is Arnold Yashenko. “Yash” was a star quarterback for the high school junior varsity team. If anything, he did more athletics than most of his classmates, but in order to make it to football practice at the high school, he was allowed to miss his last period class. Guess what his last period class was?

There is a great sense of injustice or unfairness among the slugs, especially with the new state requirement. Arabella signs up for an extra credit summer class in journalism. The teacher is a local television reporter who became famous in the town for exposing a car wash that cut corners. Arabella wants to somehow expose unfairness in the summer school program. And she thinks she may have the goods on Mrs. Finnerty, the retired second grade and home economics teacher who is doing the summer gym class.

Her problem is that everyone likes Mrs. Finnerty. Yes, she does have them do elementary school games like duck-duck-goose sometimes, but she is really sweet and every day she brings delicious desserts. Even Arabella likes her, she just does not think taking the class is fair.

Meanwhile, prankster Jesse has developed some fake news regarding toilets. For his journalism project, he wants to see if his social media posting gets any traction.

Things get complicated for Yash. Sure, he does fine in the gym class, but while he is taking summer school, the rest of next fall’s J.V. football team is practicing. Even though he played for the coach last fall, the coach refuses to let him come late to practice. He learns that there is a new kid in town who is every bit as good a quarterback as he is. That newcomer already has a nickname, Nitro Nate. Even Yash’s two best friends on the team become more distant as Nate’s speed and skills impress the whole team.

As with so many of Korman’s stories, the mixed ensemble cast provides a lot of humor and conflict. At the same time, the kids each in their own way try to make the best of a bad situation. But it takes time. And they have a lot to teach each other. Slugfest is a lot of fun.

What will Arabella do about her research on Nate and Mrs. Finnerty? Will Jesse’s big prank work this time and give him credit in the journalism class? Watch how Yash learns to play the twins off each other to get them to play football. And Kaden really is a poor athlete, but he can instruct Yash on the best trajectory for a football pass.

And there is a big climax that affects everyone. It may not be the same as a truckload of Vuvuzelas floating down the river as in The Unteachables, but it is fun with a purpose. Gordon Korman has crazily creative mind.

Joseph Loconte. A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War. Nelson, 2015.

For a condensed review of this see A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18 by Joseph Loconte
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Readers might be able to guess what A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War is about from the title. Yes, fantasy writers J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis both survived the First World War. This book not only recounts their war record, but it shows how their war experiences affected and colored their storytelling. Because both authors wrote powerful stories, this book itself is one powerful book.

The author cites many reputable historians in describing the general experiences and effects of the war. At the same time it focuses on the two men. Lewis, a few years younger than Tolkien, did not reach draft age until 1916, but that was the same year Tolkien joined up. Both men became junior officers, and both men served on the lines for about a year each when they were sent home: Tolkien suffered a severe illness while Lewis was badly injured. The Armistice was signed before either man had fully recovered. But both men lost many or most of their friends. Lewis was very thankful that his older brother Warren (“Warnie”) survived.

The main thrust of A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War, however, is literary. Loconte observes that most war veterans such as Remarque, Hemingway, Graves, or the early Dos Passos had all become disillusioned. They saw such horrors of war that any Victorian optimism or scientific evolution could no longer be seriously believed. This reviewer cannot help think of the fractured Lord’s Prayer in Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”: “Our nada who art in nada…” etc.

Tolkien and Lewis were different. Just yesterday I was listening to a podcast from a fantasy writer. He said that the main difference between fantasy and science fiction is that science fiction often is amoral while fantasy notes that good and evil exist. The few fantasies such as the Game of Thrones series which are exceptions to this prove the rule because Martin will never be able to bring the tales to a close.

Loconte notes two key differences in Lewis and Tolkien from most of their contemporaries. The first is that they wrote from a Christian worldview. Lewis’s conversion came later as an adult. He had already written some things that were more typical of his generation. The author quotes Virginia Woolf when she heard that T. S. Eliot had converted and been baptized. She wrote:

I was shocked. A corpse would seem to me more credible than he is. I mean, there is something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God. (125)

Whew! Talk about strong language! Loconte says that “such was the tide of elite opinion in much of postwar Europe.” How countercultural were such things among the elite, the literati. Both Lewis and Tolkien were Oxford professors; Eliot, a celebrated poet. All three found something in the “waste land” of the postwar West.

The second is that they believed in the noble potential of people. No, neither Frodo nor Ransom were flawless. Frodo, after all, did not voluntarily toss the ring into the pit of Mt. Doom. Ransom thought there was little he could do about the N.I.C.E. The stories may have been fantasy or science fiction, but the motivations of the characters were things we could all relate to.

Middle-earth is not, Tolkien insisted, an imaginary world, but rather our world—with its ancient truths and sorrows—set in a remote past. Indeed, any legends cast in the form of a supposed primitive history of this world, he said, must reckon with the tragic reality of human frailty. (122, emphasis in original)

Christianity explains that frailty more honestly and accurately than any modern utopian scheme. I recall a friend once asked me if I believed in Adam and Eve. At the time I was still searching, but even then I could tell him, I don’t know if it is true, but it is real. It explains why things are the way they are. It makes more sense than Rousseau or Nietzsche.

One of the last subheadings in A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War reads “The Realism of Fantasy.” That perhaps in a nutshell is the crux of this book. There is a lot more. It is very quotable and highly recommended to anyone who is even a casual fan of either author.

John C. Rankin. The Screwtape Text Messages. TEI Publishing, 2019.

We have reviewed a few books by John Rankin, and have mentioned him in other posts. This book was a little sad for me to pick up because I had known and occasionally worked with Dr. Rankin for over thirty years. He passed away two years ago. His face is on the book’s cover. I saw him in my memory every time I picked the book up.

The Screwtape Text Messages clearly borrows from the C. S. Lewis classic The Screwtape Letters. The Screwtape Letters first introduced me to C. S. Lewis. (I did not learn about his kids’ books till years later.) The Screwtape Text Messages takes the same concept a generation later, beginning in the nineties up to the time the book was written and published. As the book progresses, Screwtape complains more and more about having to use an old Blackberry when newer tech works better, but that is life where he comes from.

There is, however, a major difference. The Screwtape Letters is fiction. The Screwtape Text Messages is a memoir, really. One could call it creative nonfiction. Besides mentor-devil antagonist Screwtape and student-devil Wormwood, the protagonist is John Rankin, the author. In effect, this is a story of Rankin’s spiritual battles over the course of his life. That part is not fiction.

It begins with flashbacks to his childhood, especially after he went away to a boarding school. There he encountered some of the “initiation rites” typical of such places, but he also ended up encountering both God and evil spirits. We see his conversion and spiritual growth—and backsliding—from the perspective of Wormwood and Screwtape. Yes, there is humor. If anything, Screwtape’s language has gotten more colorful since Lewis wrote about him, but we soon understand this is a serious book. It is very much an autobiography. Yet, it is one that makes us understand there is an unseen world.

The Bible gives us glimpses, for example when Elisha prays that God opens his servant’s eyes, and we see the chariots of fire surrounding the valley of Dothan. (See II Kings 6:15-17). Rankin reminds us that:

…we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

Time and again the tempters try to work on a personally perceived strength, which can also be turned into weakness if our pride or other deadly sin gets in the way. Rankin’s tunnel vision optimism (TVO) helps him persevere and overcome many obstacles. But it can be twisted by the enemy to wear him down. As the Bible warns, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (I Corinthians 10:12)

As has been noted on our blog, Rankin served in an area that few Christians in ministry serve. He was active in the pro-life movement and also conducted many forums with atheists, academics, and activists who oppose Christianity and/or religion. His ministry overall was effective in getting at least some people to see things in a different light, just as this book does even to a reader who is a believer. This book definitely reflects deeply onto our own lives, but from an infernal perspective.

At one point Rankin becomes involved in what would politely be called a marginal or pseudo-Christian cult. Ironically, Rankin is doing this because he thinks he is researching other groups which are cults. This gets Screwtape excited:

Remember—Hierarchy not Freedom! Now, we do not necessarily flee the possibility of such studies, but if we can, we do everything possible to help the subject get sucked into the “deceptions” he thinks he is studying, thinking he is above “deception” himself. (50)

Later, Rankin comes to his senses, so to speak (see Luke 15:17 HCSB). Screwtape worries:

Then there was the dangerous idea and initial work where Rankin started writing a book called “No Coercion in the Gospel” (a nasty attempt to counterpunch the Motto of Hell: Hierarchy, not Freedom!) (60)

Rankin pulls no punches:

So, when he began pro-life (we prefer to call it “anti-abortion” because a double negative is easier to degrade than a double positive) ministry in late 1983, we shuddered (Oh how we desperately hate anything that affirms women and their unborn as equally human, for we hate marriage, we want women to be treated as property by chauvinistic men, who love the abortion, the killing ethos, and we hate children, all of whom are the seed of woman out of whom the Redeemer came). (67)

We see that The Screwtape Text Messages are quite pointed and very honest. Rankin himself comes across as a flawed individual, one who does sometimes fall into sin. In some ways this may be most serious spiritual autobiography since Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Ultimately grace is all we have, but still we can see the Lord working out his salvation in the life of one of his people. Not trivial at all.

Carol Schlorff. How to Kill a Giant. Elk Lake Publishing, 2023.

How to Kill a Giant is a middle grade or young adult novel that kids should get a kick out of. Readers may find echoes of Stories from Grandma’s Attic or the Magic Treehouse books—with maybe a touch of The House of the Seven Gables.

In this case Hugo and his friends, brother and sister Stefan and Julia, find a secret room in the old farmhouse of Stefan and Julia’s grandparents. In the room, which clearly has not been occupied in a long time, they find an old family Bible and soon are transported to Ancient Israel near Bethlehem where they meet up with young shepherd David.

From the title readers can guess the general trajectory of the story. Stefan, Hugo, and Julia are twelve, thirteen, and fourteen respectively. David is a few years older. But much of the story tells us how David takes care of his sheep. We also see how he handles a lion attack and an attempt by some Philistine marauders to sell the three young time travelers into slavery. Our modern youngsters do experience some culture shock, to say the least.

David tells his new friends: “Listen, I know it is not easy. I’m often terrified, too, but little by little, my courage has grown with each test of faith” (856).

We know the basic story of David and Goliath, but this shares more insight into what makes for a good shepherd. As Hugo comes from a broken home and has been victimized by a couple of bullies at his new middle school, he comes to see what courage really means. The junior punks who torment him have nothing on Goliath. But David may have been bullied as much by his older brothers. We know that at least a couple of them looked down on him.

David admits, “My brothers never really cared for me because I am the youngest, but something happened to make them hate and resent me” (1032). He then proceeds to tell them about the visit of the prophet Samuel and how Samuel anointed him—and not one of them.

In the hands of many this could be a somewhat saccharine moralistic story that accomplishes little. Schlorff makes it real. We begin to admire David even apart from his giant-slaying, and we begin to root for Hugo and his friends as they find themselves in various jams. To retell the David and Goliath story is hardly treading new ground, neither are stories of time-traveling teenagers, but this gets beyond the routine and helps us see some things with new eyes.

In her notes at the end, the author acknowledges Bill Myers for some help. Many readers of late elementary and young adult books recognize the name. He is one of the most prolific and popular writers of books for those age groups. Any writer would be wise to pay attention to suggestions that he may have made. Miss Schlorff was not taking Mr. Myers’ name in vain.

N.B.: References are Kindle locations, not page numbers.

Hank Philippi Ryan. One Wrong Word. Forge, 2024.

One of us at English Plus has read a number of Hank Philippi Ryan novels, but I never had. I figured that her latest would be a good introduction.

If you like fast-paced thrillers, you will like One Wrong Word. The writing is very effective. Few chapters are more than four or five pages long, but they always end with a surprise or a cliffhanger. In other words, it makes the reader want to keep on reading.

Arden Ward works for a Boston public relations firm that specializes in fixing reputations. The wife of a prominent real estate developer comes to her for help. Her husband Ned Bannister had been on trial for running over a twenty-something skateboarder late one night in his firm’s parking garage. The local press followed this case closely, and the district attorney zealously wanted a conviction. While he was found not guilty, he still had public opinion against him. Mrs. Bannister wanted them to move on with their lives and was looking for help.

Arden sympathized. Her father had been governor of Pennsylvania when some government officials were involved in a scandal. While her father was in no way implicated, the scandal put an effective end to his political career. With this week’s news, one might think of O.J. Simpson. He was acquitted of murder, but he could never face the public in quite the same way after his trial. One might also think of Donald Trump, a real estate mogul who seems to be in the crosshairs of two or three district attorneys who dislike him.

Arden also finds herself on the wrong end of a scandal. Her boss, Warren Carmichael, fires her because a client noted Arden uses the same brand of perfume that the client’s philandering husband gives to his paramours. It is strictly coincidental, but Mr. Carmichael explains that he cannot lose the client’s business. He promises that if she handles the Bannister case well, he will give her good recommendations as she searches for work elsewhere.

Ned’s defense attorney suddenly gets run over by a car on her way to see Ned. Before she completely loses consciousness, she says his name. Now it looks like Bannister may have run her over as well—though Arden asks, logically, why would he want to harm the person who just successfully defended him in a murder case? Monelle Churchwood, who works for the D.A. and was Ned’s prosecuting attorney, is eager to find evidence to implicate Bannister in another case.

Meanwhile, Monelle and Arden get occasional text messages implicating Ned in other crimes. These texts are anonymous, but seem to carry some legitimate information. At one point Ned and Arden visit Ned’s mother in rural Vermont only to find out they have been followed.

There is much more action. As I noted, nearly every chapter has some kind of twist or revelation. The surprises keep coming right up until the end. One Wrong Word is truly entertaining. While more of a mystery than a suspense thriller—reputations, not lives, are endangered here—One Wrong Word keeps the reader guessing and likely misdirected. But isn’t that what good magicians do?

P.S. Ryan is a news reporter for a Boston television station. Her given name is Harriet, and Hank is a nickname for Harry. This reviewer enjoyed the book partly because of its Boston setting. At one point, though, I felt bit disoriented. I said to myself, “I do not recall Route 2 going where they were going.” But in the note at the end, Ms. Ryan admits that she did take some liberties with the geography of the Boston area. For the sake of the story, who will notice?

Bill Carey. True Tales of Tennessee. History P, 2023.

Well, we have reviewed anecdotal history books on various states in the recently, specifically Connecticut and Florida. Now Tennessee takes its turn.

True Tales of Tennessee mostly covers the nineteenth century from about 1810 until the Civil War, with a few details from earlier and later. Most striking are simply the changes that took place during that time. Part of that were changes in the settlement of the land, but there were also significant technological advances that would affect the territory/state, too.

The book starts with one of the most significant events in recent (geologically speaking) North American history, the New Madrid earthquake. Centered just across the Mississippi River, it had a great effect on the relatively few settlers in the area and especially on the river traffic. In those days, the standard river boats were keelboats that sailed downriver but rarely upriver.

That would change in Tennessee beginning in 1811, just four years after Fulton built the first steamboat. True Tales of Tennessee describes in detail riverboat arrivals in Memphis, Nashville, and eventually Chattanooga. This made a great difference in commerce in the region, especially once they tamed certain rough patches such as Muscle Shoals and the Suck.

During this time Tennessee was the home to two presidents, Andrew Jackson and James Knox Polk. This is not a political history, but it does describe some of the things these two did that made them appeal to fellow Tennesseans. We also learn a few things about another son of the state, Davy Crockett, and what happened to the Native Americans. Carey reminds us that Crockett did not support the Indian Removal Act.

The two other technical marvels from the time period that would greatly affect the state were the telegraph and the railroad. The first news item sent there via telegraph described a passenger ship arriving in Boston from Europe. The news itself was hardly earthshaking, but the fact that the news arrived only about two hours after the ship docked in Boston was a big deal. The 1850s brought the arrival of the railroad. The rivers had connected the state to the north and west, now the railroad connected it across the Appalachians to the east.

We read about the lives of slaves. One very interesting chapter tells of an old family photo that led a man on a collection of family oral history that details what life as a slave was like and the effects of Reconstruction and the reaction to it. Cotton was a chief cash crop then, and even the railroads were built partly by slave labor. There is a chapter dedicated to runaways and abolitionists. We learned that the John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem “The Cross” (1852) was written in memory of a man who died in a Nashville prison. He had been convicted of helping slaves escape.

We also read about some other labor movements and entrepreneurs. In some cases there are historical homes or other edifices such as a furnace that still stand today. Other times there is just the historical record. In all, we get a good sense of what was going on in Tennessee as it grew into statehood prior to the Civil War.

Carey is careful to separate speculation from what likely truly happened. Some stories changed over time. He tries wherever possible to cite primary sources such as letters, diaries, and contemporary newspaper accounts. Some things do not change much. When we read what political figures and newspapers said about people they disagreed with, the crude discourse we occasionally encounter on the Internet does not seem that different, e.g., “…the total want of all that is required to constitute the man.” Ah, humanity!

Stephen R. Turley. The Abolition of Sanity. Turley Talks, 2019.

The Abolition of Sanity is basically an intelligent Cliff’s Notes (or Spark Notes) type of work on C. S. Lewis’s book The Abolition of Man. Lewis (1898-1963) observed that modernism—which today still has a great effect on our culture—is generating “men without chests.” In other words, people with intellect (heads) and bodily urges (stomachs), but with no moral base (chest, or heart). Turley does a nice job of summarizing this in relatively few pages. Hopefully, the book will get people to read the original Lewis work.

One illustration in both books meant a lot to this reader. Lewis cites a cotemporary textbook telling about an experience the great poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge had upon seeing a waterfall. Coleridge called it sublime and felt badly for another person who simply called it pretty.

The book Lewis and Turley quote says, in part, “We appear to be saying something very important about something; and, actually, we are only saying something about our own feelings” (12). This dismisses something potentially uplifting to something merely mechanistic and subjective. (For what it is worth, I have read other similar misunderstandings concerning Coleridge in I. A. Richards and Emerson.)

The problem is not merely that people are missing out or that some folks appreciate nature more than others. The problem is worldview. If we are educating people to see things in a strictly mechanistic and utilitarian way, then they will be far more likely to submit to tyranny. Why? Because morality becomes merely mechanistic and utilitarian. And that leads to horrors.

I recently read something that the largest cause of death in the twentieth century was death by government. When we look at totals from Turkey, Indochina, central Africa, Germany, Russia, and China among others, far more deaths were caused by political executions and imprisonments than any other single cause. If war casualties are included, nothing comes close.

Both authors note that all cultures have had a tradition of some kind of moral code—Lewis uses the word Tao. This moral code is fairly similar across cultures, but since the so-called Enlightenment some people have tried to dismantle it. But what replaces the Tao is not utopia, but tyranny. Both books are timely today. Read Lewis if you can. For a concise interpretation, see Turley.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. 1975; Translated by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, Mariner, 2021.

I am not sure whether it is because of the original material or the quality of the translation—likely both—but this is great reading!

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the earliest extant tales in English concerning King Arthur and his knights. While it and the poem Pearl were likely written by a contemporary of Chaucer, the English dialect was significantly different from Chaucer’s London English. It is much closer to Anglo-Saxon, so for most readers a translation really helps. Here are the opening lines in the original:

Siþen þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at troye
þe borȝ brittened and brent to brondez and askez…

Here is Tolkien’s translation:

When the siege and the assault had ceased at Troy
and the fortress fell in flame to firebrand and ashes…

Definitely more recognizable!

Now critics have written much about Sir Gawain the Green Knight. Even this edition contains a preface by the editor, an introduction by the translator, and the text of a J. R. R. Tolkien lecture on the subject.

This is not going to be any literary interpretation then, but a mere review of sorts for the reader, with perhaps a little appreciation for Tolkien. (If I just say Tolkien, I am referring to J. R. R., not his son Christopher, who edited this collection.)

Tolkien gives some reasonable evidence that Chaucer knew the poem if not the poet, but the dialect they spoke was notably different. One near contemporary would write that one could travel twenty miles in England and not be able to understand the dialect spoken in the new place. Chaucer is more or less readable to the educated modern reader. The poetry in this volume would not be so.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are found on the same medieval manuscript book, and there is good reason to believe they were written by the same anonymous poet, often called the Pearl Poet. The two poems are quite different, however.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has elements of many of the Arthurian stories, namely courtesy, courtly love, and magic. When reading it, we are reminded that both courtesy and courtly love have the same root, court. Courtesy is the behavior or actions one would be expected to take in the court of a king or nobleman. Courtly love is the formal relation between a man and a woman who are members of a court and expected to chastely honor one another.

The tale begins with some magic. An exceptionally large knight, all dressed in green, with green skin and a similar green horse shows up in Arthur’s court with a challenge. Without going into too much detail, none of the knights (Lancelot, Bors, Bedivere, Agravaine, Iwain, and Lionel among others) want to accept the challenge, so Arthur takes it on himself. The test is dangerous, and no one in the court really wants the king to do it. Finally, Arthur’s young nephew Gawain says he will accept it, even though he will probably be killed in the attempt.

After some serious magic—I will leave the reader to discover what it is—Gawain realizes that in one year, he has to go to the Green Knight’s castle to take the second half of the challenge. He must arrive by New Year’s Day. As the following Christmas approaches, Gawain sets out to try to find the Green Knight and his castle.

He finally is welcomed by a nobleman who says he knows the Green Castle. He invites Gawain to spend a few days with him celebrating the holidays. The nobleman (we find out near the end his name is Bertilak) goes hunting every day for three days, but he insists that Gawain stay at the castle and entertain the ladies of the court. Again, without going into too much detail, the ladies of the court provide pleasant diversion but also temptation. This creates real tension in the story. What if the expectation of courtesy or courtly love conflict? What if either behavior conflicts with the Biblical moral code?

Tolkien’s own commentary notes that “Gawain is forced to draw…a distinction between ‘sin’ (the moral law) and ‘courtesy’” (128). I note that in this story the young Gawain is not the libertine we meet in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and other later tales.

The poetry here is very lively. The poet clearly observed hunts and enjoyed them. On the first day there is a deer hunt led by the nobleman. As I read this, I could not help thinking of the description of fox hunts in The Eustace Diamonds. On the second day the lord and his men hunt a formidable wild boar. And on the third day there is indeed a fox hunt. Meanwhile back at the castle, the tension mounts.

Finally, Gawain sets out for the nearby castle of the Green Knight. The “castle” turns out to be a cave in a hill, more like the Hörselberg in the story of Tannhäuser, a courtly story made famous in more modern times by a Wagner opera and an Aubrey Beardsley novella. Gawain does meet the challenge, but not in the way he was expecting. There really is a surprise ending—sorry, no spoilers here!

The tale is divided into four “fits” or cantos of distinct stanzas with a varying number of lines. The first fit is set at Arthur’s Court (at Winchester here, not Camelot) when the Green Knight shows up. The second is Gawain wandering the British countryside till he finally comes to Bertilak’s castle. The third and longest fit describes his stay at Bertilak’s with the hunting and feasting at the castle. The fourth fit describes the second encounter with the Green Knight at the Knight’s place.

The stanzas are very distinctive, too. Most of the lines follow the older Anglo-Saxon or Old English alliterative style. Though he sometimes changes which sounds alliterate, Tolkien is careful to keep this up throughout. Notice in the second line of the poem translated above, the line still alliterates but instead of repeating the b sound, it alliterates with f. Still, the narrative poem reads here like a short novel.

The final four lines of each stanza are shorter and instead of alliterating, they rhyme abab. The poem, then, has elements of both the older English—think of the alliteration of Beowulf—with the rhyming which was becoming more standard, especially as courts took on French styles of singing. Tolkien masters this as well, so the poetic quality comes through even to a modern ear.

We are reminded that Tolkien himself was a medievalist. His commentary that accompanies the poem is worth reading and very helpful. Unlike many critics, even in his day, he does not try to impose a more contemporary worldview, but takes the work at face value. We are also reminded that his Middle Earth was a medieval world. His love of such things comes through in his novels, his translations, and in his scholarly work. That, plus his skilled writing, makes these writings appealing even to those who have no interest in medieval literature.

At the same time, his own commentary on the poem hints at what makes his storytelling so effective:

Behind our poem stalk the figures of elder myth, and through the lines are heard the echoes of ancient cults, beliefs and symbols remote from the consciousness of an educated moralist (but also a poet) of the late fourteenth century. His story is not about those old things, but it receives part of its life, its vividness, its tension from them. That is the way with great fairy-stories—of which this is one (110, author’s emphasis).

One could say the same thing about the legendarium of Middle Earth.

Pearl

Pearl is the second poem Tolkien translated in this book. While Sir Gawain and the Green Knight could be considered a short epic of four “books,” Pearl is a visionary poem. While quite different in style, it has echoes of Dante’s Paradiso.

Again, Tolkien does a great job of translating the poem into modern English so that it reads like a narrative. Yes, it is devotional. It even has elements of hymns. But it mainly tells a story.

Like The Divine Comedy, it is told in the first person. Like Dante, too, the poet’s role to some degree is as a passive observer. But like Dante in his poem, the Pearl Poet reacts to things and carries on conversations. In this poem, Pearl is the poet’s Beatrice.

Like Dante at the beginning of his poem, the Pearl Poet is distressed, even depressed at first. In his case it is not because of exile; it is because his own young daughter named Pearl has died. (Tolkien notes in his commentary that some do not take this literally but see this simply on a symbolic level. He explains why he takes it literally. Pearl is no mere symbol but a real person.)

Indeed, there is a tone at the beginning not unlike Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son.” Both poets not only miss their child, but they wonder about purpose—both a purpose for their own lives and why God would allow one so young and innocent to die. While Jonson answers that question in a few lines, the Pearl Poet takes a hundred and one twelve-line stanzas.

The stanzas themselves are very tightly written. They clearly have more influence from French style than Old English. Each stanza has an ababcdcdefef rhyme scheme. Also the first line of a stanza takes a phrase from the last line of the stanza before it. The stanzas then are arranged in groups of five (one group of six) that have the common lines, so there is a thematic order to the poem.

As with Dante’s, much of this poem records a supernatural vision. The poet gets taken into Heaven where he sees many things and people including his daughter. Much of the poem consists of ethereal descriptions of what he sees. More of the poem, though, relates the conversation between the poet and Pearl, his daughter in Heaven. There are numerous allusions to the Bible, often naming the book of the Bible where the teaching or story is found.

Ben Jonson says God took his son from him at an early age because he had been turning his son into an idol. He also asks, “Will man lament the state he should envy?” Similarly, the poet and the reader understand that daughter Pearl now lives in a far, far better place. As St. Paul tells us: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (I Corinthians 2:9 KJV, cf. Isaiah 64:4 KJV). The poem, too, especially as it is translated for us, is a thing of beauty, as is the better place it tries to describe.

Sir Orfeo

Sir Orfeo is by far the shortest of the three narrative poems translated by Tolkien in this book. It has a little over 600 lines, so it really is a short story compared to the other two. Most readers can tell that the hero’s name suggests Orpheus, and, indeed, this is a medieval, courtly recasting of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. This poem appears in various forms in three different manuscripts and may have been written as much as a century earlier than the other two poems. Tolkien tells us that it was probably translated from the French into Middle English.

In our story Orfeo and Heuridis are already married. He is a good king ruling a mythical England, not unlike Arthur. He also is a skilled harpist. One day while resting outdoors with her ladies-in-waiting, Heuridis suddenly disappears. The king is so distressed at his loss, that he gives up his throne and his riches to go on a quest to find his queen. He lives the life of a poor begging minstrel. As with Orpheus in Ovid, his music enchants even trees and animals.

A loyal retainer takes over the throne as a steward. Orfeo gets him to promise that if he ever returns with his wife, that he will return the kingdom to him. After roaming for ten years, Orfeo discovers that Heruidis was taken captive by faeries (that is the way Tolkien spells it here—though not in his commentaries). One can guess the rest of the story. He begins singing and playing his harp. He is so moving that the king and queen of the faeries grant him his wish. Let us just say that it has a happier ending than the original Greek myth.

One thing stuck out to this reader. The medieval kingdom has been ruled by a caretaker, a steward, for ten years. What happens when the legitimate king returns after spending time with woodland faeries? Hmm. One can wonder how much this inspired the story of the Stewards of Gondor and Aragorn and the elves in The Return of the King…

Sir Orfeo is fun to read. From all three of these works we see reasons why Return of the King continues to be an Amazon bestseller.

P.S. Speaking of Amazon, when is Season Two of The Rings of Power coming out?