Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore

 Psychotherapist Thomas Moore, a former Catholic monk, expressed some unusual ideas about depression in his book Dark Nights of the Soul. I feel I should preface my comments with a caveat. If you have clinical depression, or think you might, please seek help from an appropriate professional in psychology, counseling or medicine. If you need medication, take it. I think you can undertake the kind exploration that Moore suggests without abandoning traditional therapies, especially if you need them to mitigate extreme symptoms that threaten your life and health.

 Moore isn’t necessarily talking about clinical depression, though he doesn’t exclude it. He finds the term depression limiting. If someone is depressed, they have a disease and there is a treatment for it. It is a matter of curing and dealing with symptoms.

As an alternative to this approach, Moore focuses on the opportunities in depression, persistent dark moods and hard times—dark nights may take any of these forms—as opportunities to mature, grow and heal the soul. Instead of rushing to get by depression and get better, sit with it, explore it and learn from it.  It could be a calling from your truest self to examine your life and become deeper, more engaged person. Instead of a curse, the dark night may turn out to be a gift.

Moore draws heavily on religion and mythology. He also discusses dreams. In the mode of Carl Jung, he sees value in symbols to illuminate what is going on in your life, as well as the value of symbolic and ritual action.

For instance, he draws a model from myth for the experience of depression. It begins with a separation or departure. One feels cut off, alone or isolated, especially from normal life. In a myth, this leaving of normal life is the beginning of an adventure. The mythic adventurer enters a new world, often and underworld, where he is challenged and gains a new perspective. These challenges help him discover who he really is. It is helpful to be able to move back and forth between the underworld and night to the upper world and day, to be able to benefit from the darkness without being consumed by it. In the end, the adventurer returns to his normal life, but it is not always easy because he is changed by his experiences in the underworld. Hopefully the lessons of his dark night well help him integrate his new life with the best of his old home.

Perspective seems to be one of the big benefits of a dark night. Everything looks different in the dark. You can reevaluate what things mean to you, the seeming trash that is truly a treasure and the seeming treasure that is truly worthless. It's a chance to clear out the clutter. It pushes you to accept that the darkness is real and part of you. Because the underworld is essentially your inner life, you can find by exploring it those places that are abandoned, ignored, neglected or run over roughshod by your outer life.

Each chapter takes on the exploration of various aspects of life that may bring about a dark night. These include love, sex, marriage, family, art, beauty, anger, disease and aging.

These journeys into darkness need not be undertaken alone. Sometimes you need professional help. The honesty and vulnerability needed to properly explore the dark parts of yourself could help you be a more open person and deepen your relationship with others. To succeed in the journey, it helps to have the attitude toward yourself of a graceful healer participating in your own life, and that attitude can make you receptive to the healing grace of others and your role as a helper of others.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall

The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need by Paul Pearsall

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Moore, Thomas. Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way through Life’s Ordeals. New York: Gotham Books, 2004.

Lift by Daniel Kunitz

Trends in fitness in the 2000s have given to new sports, such as the CrossFit games, and new athletic entertainments in the form of American Ninja Warrior. Daniel Kunitz traces the rise of this new fitness culture, which he calls New Frontier Fitness or NFF, in his Lift.

 Kunitz goes back to the ancient Greeks, who revered physical beauty and fitness and considered it the obligation of citizens (only men were citizens) to keep themselves in good shape in order to serve and defend their nation. The Greek word for this training was askesis.

 The English word asceticism has it root in askesis. While we now associate it with self-denial, the Greeks associated it with purposeful self-discipline. Participants in NFF have embraced this old-fashioned asceticism, training purposefully with benefits that spill into all areas of life.

 As an aside, Christian asceticism is often associated with self-denial, sometime extreme, for the purpose of penance. When I read Paul’s writing on denial of self, I see it described in the context of disciplining oneself with the purpose of living a higher life. He even uses athletes as an example. He is not denigrating athletes for training for a worthless prize. He is reminding Christians that they have and even more important calling that deserves at least an equal commitment and effort.

 Of course, few cultures since then have reveled in physical achievement. Exercise at times has been considered dangerous to health. Weightlifting too much resembles labor, a task for lower-class people that wealthy and middle-class people were reluctant to embrace. Even when exercise became more acceptable, starting in the 1960s and taking off in the 1980s, the focus was often on appearance.

 NFF is not concerned with appearance. It is concerned with performance. If one trains to perform well, appearance will take care of itself.

 Because of this focus on function, NFF eschews many of the machines found in gyms. Exercises resemble tasks one might actually perform, though with greater intensity intended to push skill and physical capacity. NFF participants train like an athlete, constantly reaching to do better, not to look better but to live better. As Kunitz says several times, they are “training for life.”

 From a historical point of view, Lift covers a lot of the same ground as Making the American Body by Jonathan Black. However, Kunitz is specifically intending to give context to NFF and its influence on how people think about being fit today.

 Though Kunitz is a professional writer, he is also a fan of NFF. He practices CrossFit, which he discusses in the book, and Olympic lifting. He also talks to people who train in other functional regimes like parkour and sweatier forms of yoga.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

Mr. America by Mark Adams

The Power Makers by Maury Klein

The Real World of Sherlock Holmes by Peter Costello

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

 Kunitz, Daniel. Lift: Fitness Culture, from Naked Greeks and Acrobats to Jazzercise and Ninja Warriors. New York: Harper Wave, 2016.

The Explorer King by Robert Wilson

Clarence King was probably the most well-known American scientist of his time. It doesn’t hurt that his scientific reputation was built on exploration of the then still wild west of the United States of that he could spin a tale. Robert Wilson recounts the life of the accomplished geologist in The Explorer King.

King was born in 1842. He was raised in Newport, Massachusetts. He was educated at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School.

As a young man, King was enamored of art critic John Ruskin. Ruskin thought the rugged Alps of Europe to be the best subject of art for their beauty, colorfulness, ruggedness and variety. When he met western geologists and mountaineers through mentors at Sheffield, he wanted to be part of it.

He headed out for California in 1863 and became part of the state’s geologic survey. He would spend the next decade studying the geology and geography of the American west, especially its mountains. He showed great physical prowess and courage as a mountaineer.

After working on the California survey, he went on to lead surveys. In 1864, he was chosen to lead a survey of Yosemite.

He built on his reputation from the Yosemite survey to lobby Congress to fund a survey of the 40^th Parallel, roughly the route the transcontinental railroads would follow. Though it was under the auspices of the Army Corp of Engineers, it was the first federally-funded scientific endeavor that was completely staffed by civilians. While working on this survey, he was the first to discover active glaciers in the U.S. His team published new methods of silver smelting to make the mines for productive (the survey’s first report dealt with mining in order to show the commercial value of their research to money-conscious Congressmen).

The 40^th Parallel survey made King famous, though not because of the many contributions to science that came from it. King’s team heard rumors of a diamond discovery in Colorado. It would have been very embarrassing for them to have walked over such a valuable mineral resource without observing it. They tracked down the site of the discovery and determined it was a hoax; the site had been planted with rough diamonds and other uncut gemstones that the con men had bought mostly with money from their marks. Stories of massive fraud sells newspapers, especially when the names of big money men in San Francisco and New York are attached to it. King was the hero of the story.

When the U.S. Geological Survey was created, King was appointed to be its first director. His career as a scientist was already on the decline. He would turn his attention to making money in mining, but he would not be successful. He would have no money when he died.

This leads to an interesting point about King, though it is not the focus of Wilson’s biography. King had nothing to leave for his secret family. He was married to a black woman. This was a very unusual thing at the time. To protect his reputation, he kept the marriage a secret. He did not even reveal to his wife his real identity until shortly before he died (she knew him as James Todd). His friend John Hay provided for Ada Copeland Todd (and the five children she had with King) after King died in 1901.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

A Professor, a President, and a Meteor by Cathryn J. Prince

The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick

Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

Wilson, Robert. The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax—Clarence King in the Old West. New York: Scribner, 2006.

Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes

Hedwig Kiesler was a headstrong Austrian girl with visions of becoming a Hollywood star. She was so determined that she dropped out of school to star working at a Berlin film studio, and by 16 she was acting professionally. She eventually achieved Hollywood stardom as Hedy Lamarr.

Lamarr had another, lesser known life, as an inventor. She, along with avant-garde composer George Antheil, invented a technology that makes much of modern communication possible. Richard Rhodes focuses on this part of Lamarr’s life in Hedy’s Folly.

The woman known for her beauty was interested in technology from youth. She enjoyed walking with her father, a banker, who explained how things worked. Her first marriage was to munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl. Though she was mostly a trophy to be shown off to his friends, she paid close attention as he and the people he entertained discussed weapons and other technology. When she moved to Hollywood, she sat up a little shop in her home and took up inventing as a hobby.

When Lamarr learned of the sinking by U-boats that were intended to carry children from Britain to safer locations in Canada, she put her head to the idea of improved torpedoes to combat the underwater threat. The torpedo would be remote controlled. To avoid attempts to jam the signal, the torpedo receiver and controller transmitter would can radio frequencies rapidly in a synchronized manner.  She enlisted the assistance of Antheil, who had experience trying to control and synchronize multiple player pianos, to work out a practical implementation of the concept.

The idea was received well by the National Inventors Council, apparently even receiving the endorsement of automotive engineer Charles Kettering. The Navy did not think the idea was practical, but it did by the patent that was awarded to the Hollywood pair in 1941. Eventually, the frequency-hopping technology invented by Lamarr was developed by the U.S. military for many communication applications.

Spread spectrum, a somewhat broader category of radio communication of which frequency-hopping was the original type, was unveiled from the military secrecy in 1976 with the publication of a textbook on the subject by Robert C. Dixon. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved fairly quickly to make room in the radio spectrum for applications of spread spectrum. These were mostly junk frequencies that had been set aside for non-communication uses. Because it broadcast on multiple frequencies, spread spectrum is less likely to be disrupted by interference by other transmissions, like a microwave (Lamarr invented frequency hopping to avoid jamming). Another important aspect of the FCC rule was that these frequencies could be used without a license.

This technology is widely used today. Wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and RFID all use spread spectrum communication. It is the basis of the wireless communication between computers that has shaped the way we live, work, and behave in coffeehouses.

Lamarr and Antheil didn’t receive much recognition for their groundbreaking invention until after it started making its way into American households and pockets. In 1997, Lamarr (and posthumously Antheil) received the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award when she was 82 years old. By then she had retired to a very private life in Florida, where she live until January 2000.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

Professional Amateur by T. A. Boyd

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

War Against the Weak by Edwin Black

Rhodes, Richard. Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. New York: Doubleday, 2011.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic of English literature. I’m writing a review of it because I want some horror to feature on Halloween.

Dorian Gray is, in my mind, a weird tale. Wilde produces a sense of creepiness that begins even in the seemingly light and hopeful first chapter. The title portrait is a supernatural object that horrifies and fascinates Gray. He is preserved in youth and beauty, and possibly even saved from the consequences of evil deeds, but the portrait become a mirror to his dark and sinful soul, something that eventually becomes too horrible for him to endure.

In addition to being a weird tale, it is a moral tale. Gray has beauty, wealth, and status, but he gives himself over to any kind of wickedness if their might be pleasure in it. At first, it is the infatuation of a hollow love for the actress Sibyl Vane. When she disappoints him on the stage by failing to present an ideal picture of love because acting it seems shallow compared to her real passion, he rejects her. Her suicide nearly turns him off the path he is pursuing, but when the thrill of the moment passed, he nearly forgot her. The sins of youth and ignorance turn more willful as he falls into using drugs and prostitutes. Eventually he murders a man. The book hints at other wrongdoing, possibly homosexuality, affairs with married women, seduction for the sake of its own pleasure, gossip, excessive drink, greed, blasphemy and leading  others into all these things.

The book could be a social commentary on the upper class of his time. With all the advantages they had, they were still corrupt. A fortunate life is not a sign of a good person. As with Job, poverty and hardship are not indications of an evil life.

Some think Wilde is exploring own life in the book. One can read hints of homosexuality in Basil Hallward’s feelings toward Gray (Basil paints the portrait), and in Gray’s feelings toward Lord Henry Wotton. Possibly Wilde was critiquing his own aestheticism, finding that it did not necessarily lead to a higher morality, but could as easily lead one to an immoral, selfish, and consuming pleasure-seeking.

In the book, Wilde never comes out and says what his intentions are, if he has any at all in terms of exploring himself, his society, or notions of beauty, art and morality. It seems clear, though, the Wilde suggests a person cannot be separated from his deeds and his consequences as Gray is with the aid of his magical painting. A man, his deeds, and their consequences may not be the same thing, but they are linked in a powerful way. When Gray tries to destroy the painting that bears the ugliness of his soul, he plunges the knife into his own heart.

Though some have accused Wilde of writing an immoral book, one could as easily argue that he wrote a very moral book. Gray is sympathetic to a degree, but he is an evildoer destroyed by the evil he did. The reader can contemplate issues of art, beauty, and morality for himself. Along the way, he can enjoy a creepy thrill.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.  1890. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003.

Esther

Esther is one of the most famous people from the Old Testament. The story of her life, as told in the Biblical book bearing her name, has been adapted to the stage and film. Joan Collins played her in Esther and the King (1960); Tiffany Dupont played her in One Night with the King (2006) based on the novel by Tommy Tenney. In 2013, Jen Lilley played the role in The Book of Esther.

It is easy to see why the book has captured the interest of storytellers in several media. It has court intrigues, romance, poetic justice, a beauty pageant, culture clashes, political and religious oppression, just to name a few elements a storyteller or reader of almost any persuasion might latch onto. You can bring many viewpoints to this book and carry many interpretations from it, though the book also provides its own interpretation.

Esther takes place during the reign of the Persian King Ahasuerus (generally identified as Xerxes I). He puts aside his wife, Queen Vashti, and his princes arrange an elaborate campaign to find a replacement. Esther is forcibly recruited into the competition. Esther is a Jewish woman, a ward of her relative Mordecai, who serves in Ahasuerus’ court. He secretly advises her, her humility and kindness win her favor in with the head caretaker of the harem, and her beauty wins the king. Meanwhile, Haman, a high official who has come to hate Mordecai, hatches a plan to destroy the Jewish people through the empire. Esther risks her life to appeal to the king and thwart Haman’s plan. This summary hardly does justice to the story, though even in the Bible the style is plain.

These events are the genesis of the Jewish festival of Purim. This is where the internal interpretation of the book comes in. Esther is celebrated for her courage to act. In addition to that, the hand of God, who is barely mentioned in the book, is seen throughout the events. He puts someone in place to rescue the Jewish captives from their enemies. He elevates Esther and Mordecai to give them protection while they are under the rule of foreigners. Though the people were threatened with genocide, God used the situation to preserve them and possibly even set up their eventual return to their homeland.

The historical books of the Bible are generally written in a plain, narrative style, though it occasionally records songs or other literary forms. Esther stands out in that it is almost novelistic. The conflict escalates to a climax followed by a brief denouement. This makes it a very engaging book.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Deal with It! by Paula White

Second Kings

Esther. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Help, Thanks, Wow by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott’s little book on prayer, Help, Thanks, Wow, is not a theological work, it is a personal essay.  Of course, there is theology.  Lamott suggests prayer is important whatever your conception of god, be it something from a formal religion or just a notion of something bigger than ourselves.  Even an atheist can pray.  Prayer is communication for our hearts to something else, something greater.

As the title suggest, she considers three prayers particularly important.  The first is, “Help.”  Praying “Help” is a way to admit we don’t have the answers or power to solve a problem.  We let go and trust that something bigger has good answers and power to achieve good results, even if it is not exactly what we want.  I see in this prayer not just a reaching out for aid, but a practice of humility.  It is amazing how near we can find God to be when we are humble.

I have written elsewhere that I consider gratitude to be essential to a happy life.  Lamott’s second prayer is, “Thanks.”  It is an important courtesy to thank those who help us, and if you seem to receive mysterious, improbable help from strangers, or no human agent at all, maybe a prayer of thanks would be in order.  Lamott suggests that we pray our thanks even when we don’t get what we want.  We should be thankful things were not worse.  We should be thankful that things are somehow okay even though we didn’t get what we want, even though something bad happened.  Gratitude is a path to peace and character.

The final prayer is, “Wow.”  It is an expression of wonder and awe.  Sometimes we experience something that blows us away: the beauty of nature and art, the love of others, the changes we see in ourselves, and other wonders.  Wow is a great prayer because it shows we can still sense and appreciate the amazing things around us.

As I mentioned, the book is personal.  It is not a detailed autobiography.  She tells enough of a story to illustrate a point, often that life sucks sometimes, and moves on.  The book has a very informal, conversational tone.  Lamott doesn’t come across as someone making an argument for the importance of prayer, she is simply talking about something that is important to her and explaining why she finds in meaningful.

Lamott, Anne.  Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.  New York: Riverhead, 2012.

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Reading Like a Writer by the Aptly Named Francine Prose

Prose, Francine.  Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them.  New York: HarperCollins, 2006.

Reading Like a Writer is different than the other books about reading that I’ve read so far.  Francine Prose doesn’t discuss judging what you read, but learning from it.  She wants readers, like herself and the aspiring writers she teaches, to look at how great writers accomplish what they do.  In that sense it is as much a book about writing as it is about literary criticism.

The book is organized with writing in mind.  Prose covers topics that are of interest to writers of fiction: words, sentences, paragraphs, narrative, character, dialogue, details and gesture.  In each chapter she discusses these issues using examples from works of classic literature.  I confess that I’ve read very few of the books she references, but she provides enough of a quotation or explanation that you don’t need to have read the book to follow her illustrations.  You don’t need to have a degree in literature to follow; this book might serve as an introduction to some classic literature.

The method Prose proposes is close reading.  This is slow, attentive reading.  It can be very purposeful, such as seeking out every time an author uses a particular word or concept.  Of course, to read with such a particular purpose in mind suggest you or someone else has already done a close reading with a more general purpose of paying attention and noticing how the book affects you and how the author accomplishes those effects.

Close reading is not intended to be a dry and analytical.  Books can be enjoyable, moving and fun.  If a fiction book doesn’t have some emotional impact on you, even if simply the pleasure of entertainment, then why would you bother to read it?  Close reading includes taking in the beauty of a story and the words used to express it.  You may not want to approach every book this way, but great books are worth the time and effort.

This book might be interesting to the critic or reviewer, professional or amateur.  I think it will be more interesting to aspiring writers who want to learn from the masters.  Prose has several masters to recommend and an approach to setting at their feet as they teach.  She won’t tell you how to write.  As much as there may be rules to writing there are examples of great writers who have bent or broken them. Reading Like a Writer may help you discover how writers did it well and hopefully you’ll continue that course on your own.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard

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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

L’Engle, Madeleine.  A Wrinkle in Time.  1962.  New York: Laurel-Leaf, 1976.

Though I review all the nonfiction books I read, I write about only a little about fiction.  Sometimes a fiction book hits so many areas of interest to me that I want to write about it.  A Wrinkle in Time is one.  It’s a classic, award-winning novel.  It’s a children’s or young adult book, and one is never too old for a good kid’s book.  It’s science fiction.  It’s informed by author Madeleine L’Engle’s Christian faith.

Margaret (Meg) Murphy is an awkward girl who doesn’t fit in.  Her family is unusual, too.  Her father is missing, though Meg stubbornly clings to hope that he will come home.  Her mother is a scientists, caring but somewhat unconventional.  Two of her brothers, twins, are pretty normal, if a little rough, and the third, the youngest, is a genius and most people find him unpleasantly odd.

Meg, her genius baby brother Charles Wallace and Calvin O’Keefe (an older, popular boy who keeps his oddness better wrapped) are pulled into an adventure in space by three creatures, seeming witches, aliens and more.  On another planet, they rescue Meg’s father and almost succumb to the powerful mind that rules the planet.  It is the things Meg dislikes most about herself that allows her to prevail.

A Wrinkle in Time is an adventure.  It is also a parable.  Part of the message is Christian.  The universe is God’s creation for His glory, and good creatures acknowledge and worship Him.  Yet there is evil, and Earth is infected with it.  Love overcomes evil.

It is tempting to see a political message.  On the world Meg visits, Camazotz, a single being rules all, taking responsibility for every decision, instilling uniformity so that everybody has the same things.  It is not hard to see this as a parallel to a communist state, where the government controls and distributes all resources.  It sounds like the nanny state as well, where people are relieved of the responsibilities of caring for themselves and making their own decisions.

It is this last point that I think is important to L’Engle whether or not is has political implications.  We are made to be individuals, unique and special, and we cannot be separated from responsibility for ourselves and our decisions and still have real joy, even if we have everything we seem to need.  When the “aunts” give gifts to the adventurers to prepare them for their trial, they give Meg her faults.  As Christians, we believe that everyone is uniquely made by God.  Our faults, shortcomings, imperfections make us needy of God’s grace, and His grace abounds in us to His glory.

In addition, IT, the mind-lord of Camazotz, is a finite being with finite imagination, thus the uniformity of the planet IT rules.  God is infinite, and His creation has enormous variety, abundance, scope and beauty beyond your imagination.  We can love, serve, and worship one God, we can all be imitators of Christ, and still each be a unique individual.

Before closing, I’d like to mention another Christian sci-fi classic, The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis.  There are some parallels between the works.  For instance, both L’Engle and Lewis, in Out of the Silent Planet, depict Earth as darkened and separated from communion with the larger universe because of the influence of human sin and the dominion of Satan.  IT, a big brain, reminds me of the Head from Lewis’ That Hideous Strength.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

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Interesting Stuff March 18, 2011

Another Real-Life Costumed Hero (or Two) Joins the Fray
-Britain Gets Its Own Kick-Ass: Banker Turns into Superhero The Statesman at Night to Fight Crime
-Britain’s Real Life Superhero The Statesman Battles Evil with the Power of Incredible Facial Hair
-Masked Environmental Vigilante “Super Tri” Put on French City’s Payroll
-Phoenix Jones Protects Seattle

Awesome Artist: Dustin Nguyen
Huckabee Toys with Whitehouse Run
I don’t like everything about Batwoman, but I like the art of J. H. Williams III
Jack Kirby My Little Pony

Jane Russell Passes
-“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” Beauty Jane Russell Dies at 89
-Jane Russell
-Jane Russell Dies
-Jane Russell, RIP
-In Memoriam: Jane Russell
-Rants and Raves: Jane Russell

Interesting Stuff Feb. 17, 2011

Practice Babies
-Arthur Explores Lives of Practice Babies Once Raised on College Campuses
-Practice Babies: An Outdated Practice Discovered

Waterworks Museum Opens In Boston
Why my wife doesn’t leave me in charge of decorating
Working Conditions Drive Women from Engineering

Writing: Steal Characters

A lot of writing revolves around characters. For some writers, characters are central, and they’re drives, decisions, history, and idiosyncrasies move the story. A popular series character can be the jackpot for a writer, especially a genre writer.

Great characters are all around. How do you find them? Do as your predecessors in inventing great characters. Steal them.

I’m not suggesting that you actually steal characters. Nor am I suggesting that the writers I’ll be discussing stole their characters. It’s a matter of looking around in literature and life for real and fictional people then reworking them, consciously and unconsciously, into your own character.

Let me draw an illustration. Let’s take a popular character and see how other popular characters are in some way a reworking of it. These connections are my invention. I have not idea what the creators of these characters were thinking. I doubt most of them were thinking along these lines.

Let’s start with the Lone Ranger. Created by George W. Trendle (written by Fran Striker) in 1933 for the radio, the Lone Ranger saw success in several media, especially television. Before looking at the masked strangers successors, look at his predecessors. There were white-hatted cowboy heroes before the ranger. His contribution was the secret identity and the avoidance of lethal force. These heroes were white knights transformed for the gunpowder age. You might see those chevaliers as vaguely Christianized versions of mythological questers like Odysseus and Hercules.



Now imagine that the Lone Ranger is an antihero, his bullets are deadly lead and he uses a lot of them. You might picture something like Jonah Hex. John Albano and Tony DeZuniga created Hex in 1971. He is a scarred frontiersman who roams the West, not necessarily protecting the innocent, but collecting bounties or dealing deadly justice.

Maybe you like that the Lone Ranger avoids deadly force. Let’s keep that, but make him a pulp-era vigilante. That is what Trendle and Striker did in when they created the Green Hornet for the radio in 1936. They even made the Hornet a distant relative, though not a descendant, and imitator of the Ranger. The Hornet is darker, though. Instead of riding a white horse, he drives the Black Beauty. He sometimes pretends to be a criminal, but it is mainly to allow him to infiltrate gangs and break them apart from the inside. In spite of this, he avoids killing just as his predecessor did (I guess Seth Rogan didn’t notice that).

What if the Lone Ranger was a costumed superhero? He might be Batman, created by Bob Kane in 1939. Bruce Wayne’s identity isn’t hidden from the audience, but his costumed crusade against crime could have been modeled on the horseman. Batman writer Bill Finger gave Batman a code of ethics that would have made the Ranger proud. Not only did Batman eschew deadly force, he rarely used a gun at all. In appearance, at least, Batman resembles Zorro more than the Lone Ranger. (Batman comics tie him to Zorro, too. Several authors have depicted it as the move the Waynes had just seen when Bruce’s parents were killed by a criminal). Zorro himself might be taken as a Latin American spin on the Ranger, except he was created 14 years earlier by Johnston McCulley.

Not all of these ostensible progeny are as good as Batman. Put the Ranger in a talking car and you might end up with something like Knight Rider. Put Jonah Hex on a motorcycle in a futuristic megacity and you might get Judge Dredd. (The Judge Dredd comics weren’t bad, just not my cup of tea. The Sylvester Stallone movie was bad.)

The Lone Ranger is an archetypal hero, which is how we can so easily draw connections between him and characters that came before and after. It doesn’t denigrate Trendle and Striker to say they drew on archetypes, or even specific characters or people, in creating his own character. It’s a compliment that they created a character that was so popular, enduring, and inspiring to other writers.

Think of your own twist on the Lone Ranger archetype. You might have other characters you love that you could call on. Take your favorite romance heroine and put her in a completely different setting (Charlaine Harris put Sookie Stackhouse in a Louisiana full of vampires). You could put a detective in the far future (Isaac Asimov did in Caves of Steel). Bring a dragon into the atomic age (yeah, Godzilla). You could make a dragon a slave to the boilermakers in a steampunk fantasy—hey, maybe I’ll do that.

Into the Depths of God by Calvin Miller

Miller, Calvin. Into the Depths of God. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2000.

I’ve wanted to read this book again since the first time I read it. I’m not sure why I was drawn back to a book that challenged me to live a kind of life I wasn’t leading, nor is it easy. Even so, I hunger and thirst for God, like every other Christian, and find myself seeking more of the One for whom my heart most yearns.

Miller begins by challenging worldliness. He puts it more elegantly than that. We live in an age of that values pleasure, material wealth, and making the most of the moment. Even spirituality is focused on how it makes us feel good, though it is rarely so blunt. The alternative to these things is a deeper relationship with the One who satisfies because of who He is.

I’m particularly challenged by Millers take on self-denial. He is far from ascetic. If anything, he is an advocate of art, desire, engagement, and action. Self-denial for a Christian isn’t about the sins we give up (though we should eschew sin); it’s about the things we take up as part of the new life we have. We love God more than any other thing. We see to please Him and obey him rather than to please people. We seek His will instead of ours.



This kind of godliness, this ravenous hunt for more of God, does not make use remote from the world. It draws us into the work God is doing in the world. Christ took on humanity and entered our world to save people and part of what He want His saved people to do is continue the work of saving people until He comes again. I’m reminded of how Jesus said he saw the work His Father was doing and He did the same work. That is how Christians are supposed to be. Each of has a calling; we see some work our Father is doing and we are to do it to as imitators of our savior.

It’s not dogged work. It should be joyous living. Whatever we do, we should do with as much excellence, beauty and art as we can because we are in a relationship with the most beautiful One, the author of beauty in nature and the ultimate inspiration for beauty in art. A Christian’s calling is the most imaginative, creative and fulfilling thing he can do.

It is not an easy life to live. It goes against the grain of the world. It takes us out of the insular coziness churches. We must face truths than can make us uncomfortable. We must humbly acknowledge God and our need for Him in everything.

I fear I’ve made it sound esoteric. Focusing on intimacy with God who is infinite, but deigned to take on humanity and suffer the punishment for our sins so we could have an eternal relationship with Him, seems a world away from helping our neighbors in need, serving the sick, and standing up for the oppressed. Yet in deeper living, these seemingly disparate things are intimately linked. When we abide in Christ, He enables us to live this life of service, and in working close to Him this way, we deepen our relationship with him.

It’s rare for me to read a book twice. I think I could read Into the Depths of God a third time and get more out of it. It whets my appetite for God.

You can find my previous, brief review of this book here.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
The Joy of Supernatural Thinking by Bill Bright
Walking with God by John Eldredge

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines. New York: Quill, 2003.

Some associate learning and teaching literature with an English Lit requirement to read boring books they didn’t understand and being embarrassed by a teacher berating them for not seeing the significance of some obscure symbol. To top things off, the kid who seems to do best is someone they know to bullshit their way through everything (that kid is probably a professor now). So when Thomas Foster promises “a lively and entertaining guide” to reading literature (it says to right on the cover of the book), he faces a skeptical audience even among book lovers.

Foster delivers on the promise. His tone is light, sometimes humorous. His style is conversational. He resorts to only on technical term and it refers to a concept that runs through the whole book so the reader will have no trouble getting it.

What makes reading the book fun is that Foster has such fun reading and thinking about what he has read. He doesn’t want people to stop enjoying what they read to start analyzing. He wants them to keep enjoying novels, stories and poems for the interest, entertainment and beauty they way they always have. Keep the old fun and add to it the enjoyments of understanding a work in relation to the rest of literature.



This is the main point of the book (and that technical term, intertextuality): a book, story, poem, or play is part of the total body of literature and by asking ourselves how it relates to other things we’ve read, using both our intellect and our emotions, we can have a full understanding and enjoyment of it. Each chapter after the first discusses things that appear in literature, such as sex, violence, weather and allusions to other works.

The idea isn’t to give you a bunch of discrete things a reader should always be looking for and doing; Foster wants to enrich readers, not burden them. Instead, each is an example of different recurring themes in literature (intertextuality says it’s all connected) allowing a few concepts to be applied to many different things.

This conceptual focus makes the book easy to grasp. The reader doesn’t have to figure out how to read like a professor by wading through a bunch of dusty old books someone thinks is great. Foster shows how readers (and he as a professor) can get more out of reading whatever they want.

That kid who bullshitted his way to a high grade in your English Lit class is probably a professor now. Fortunately, Professor Foster isn’t he.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard

Interesting Stuff Aug. 13, 2009

$33.3B Energy and Water Appropriations Bill Heads to House Floor
Debut of Green Hornet’s Black Beauty
Gallery: The Last “Superman” Phone Booths In NYC
Highway spending isn't the stimulus it was envisioned to be
House OKs $4B for transportation projects
Interesting Stuff July 2, 2009
LaHood Defends Stimulus, Impact on Jobs
Playing with Water - Vacation Spots for Water Lovers
Recovery Act Not Very Stimulating Relative to Water Investments
Road officials trying to put stimulus cash to work
Robot Delivers Packages Through Sewers
Senate Begins Debate on $34.3B Energy and Water Appropriations Bill
Senate Confirms Obama's NASA Pick
Senators Propose Bill That Would Require States to Impose Ban or Face Cut in Highway Funds
Space Station Toilet Malfunctions
STIMULUS WATCH: Neediest areas not first for money
What Do Americans Have Against Awesome Toilets?
Whole Grain Serial
Vinegar and Mustard: Salad Dressing or Giant Worm Irritant?

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury & The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst

In Dreams of Iron and Steel (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), Deborah Cadbury tells the stories of seven great works that cover over a century of engineering history. Originally published in Great Britain as Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, the book was a companion to a BBC television series. The projects covered vary widely from a sewer built under a metropolis to a bridge that towered above the skyline of its day.

The oldest of these (still standing like all but one of the other projects) is the Bell Rock lighthouse. The Bell Rock sank many ships that sought shelter from North Sea storms in Scotland’s Firth of Forth. Robert Stevenson, grandfather of author Robert Louis Stevenson, designed and oversaw the construction of a tower on it. The rock was a formidable construction site. It sat eleven miles from land. High tide covered it with as much as 16 feet of water. Low tide exposed an area only 250 by 130 feet. Yet Stevenson and his men built a 100-foot, stone tower on it. They did it 200 years ago.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, several wonders were built almost at once. The Great Eastern, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was twice the size of any other ship. Though a commercial failure, it set the standard for the next generation of ships.

Brunel launched his ship into a dirty and diseased Thames. Joseph Bazalgette sought to make the river safer for London residents. He built sewers under an ancient city that had grown to 2.5 million people and sprawled over 80 square miles.

In the American West, rival firms raced across the continent to build a railroad that would unite a nation recovering from civil war. In New York, John and Washington Roebling tackled the broad East River with their Brooklyn Bridge. They risked their lives and reputations on the longest span of the day and a material untested in bridges—steel.

The twentieth century inaugurated bigger feats. First proposed in 1879 by Vicomte Ferdinand de Lesseps of France, builder of the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal defeated most of those tried to build it. Even the United States poked at the mountains in futility until John Stevens, a railroad engineer, upgraded the infrastructure and equipment. When Stevens left the canal, a frustrated Theodore Roosevelt put military officers in charge. Lieutenant Colonel George Goethels, an engineer with extensive lock and dam experience, saw the canal through to its completion shortly before World War I.

The final project, America’s “damn big dam”, was build during the Depression. Hoover Dam was huge and constructed under difficult conditions. But construction engineer Frank “Hurry up” Crowe pushed and planned to get it done early and under budget.

Cadbury treats each project separately. However, they are linked by common elements.

Tragedy and setbacks touched each one. Thousands of men, usually poor laborers and sometimes children, were killed or injured to make these huge structures. They were beset by lack of financing, reluctance to try new methods and materials, bankrupt contractors, political opposition, corruption, greed, prejudice, and other human imperfections.

At their best, these engineers and their wonders are linked by the same qualities that appear in the best of engineering today. They had a vision to make people safer, healthier, richer, and freer. They created solutions to immense problems.

Robert Stevenson’s triumph at Bell Rock won the confidence of the Northern Lighthouse Board. It also launched an association between the Stevenson family and Scottish lighthouses that lasted four generations. During their tenures in the office of engineer for the board, Stevenson and his sons dominated the design, construction, and operation of the lights. Bella Bathurst tells their story in The Lighthouse Stevensons (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).

This book has its own kind of variety: technical, professional, and personal. It covers the construction and technology of several lighthouses, the masterpieces of Robert and his three sons. They not only built towers, but also improved their design and the design of the lamps, reflectors, optics, and mechanical systems that operated in them. One even studied the waves that assaulted their works.

It shows that engineering is more than simply design and construction. The Stevensons were also managers, fundraisers, businessmen, public servants, purchasing agents, manufacturers, contractors, and more. Their work included a broad section of what engineers do.

The book is also a biography of these four men that reveals the dynamics of the family. Robert insisted his sons join the family profession and business. Only one, David, seemed to take to it naturally. Only David’s sons filled the next generation of lighthouse Stevensons. Alan and Tom were more inclined to work in literature and the arts. Alan proved himself to be a capable engineer by building a 138-foot light at Skerryvore that could withstand the elements and exhibit a simple beauty. He became so disabled by disease, Bathurst suggests it was muscular sclerosis, that he gave up his work with the lighthouses. He managed to work irregularly as a writer. His works include and encyclopedia article on lighthouses and a translation of Greek poems. Tom shared Alan’s artistic leaning, but not his intensity and focus. He and David eventually divided the engineering work for the Northern Lights.

Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer, of course. As Robert Louis Stevenson said about his internship in the profession, “He is a wise youth, to be sure, who can balance one part of genuine life against two parts of drudgery between four walls and for the sake of one, manfully accept the other.” But some managed to catch what Marion Allen, a laborer on the Hoover Dam, called constructitis. “Sometimes one thinks he is cured,” said Allen, “only to have a relapse when he goes by fresh concrete or catches the smell of fresh sawdust from new lumber. Anyone with this affliction has to start construction of some kind, even of only to dig a hole and fill it up again.”

Order this book here.