EarthEchoes--A Filamental Emblem

Chrysos glories, wild-dervish

      Winds, and Tongues

            of Fire

draw EarthEchoes

      from dry speechless

            Dust;

molten core-flame radiates

      long lingering

            Energies of

Creation upward/outward

      concentrating Heat and

            Fire to

Explode

      Ocean-wombs, River-veins

            that harmonize

EarthEchoes,

      as Forest-nets, interwoven

            greeneries that

paint EarthEchoes

      for listening

            ears.

Beneath the sound, the song,

      Heat and Fire

            persist—

Golden glow of God’s own

      touch—pulse and power—

            EarthEchoes.

Joe R. Lansdale, THE COMPLETE DRIVE-IN -- A Long Day's Journey into Nightmares

Joe R. Lansdale, The Complete Drive-In: Three Novels of Anarchy, Aliens, & the Popcorn King. Introduction by Don Coscarelli. Underland Press, 2010.  464 pp. Trade paperback, $16.95. ISBN-10: 098022604X, ISBN-13: 978-0980226041.  Kindle Edition, Underland Press, 2010, 646 kb. $9.99. ASIN: B004S6UWBE

 Includes:

The Drive-In (A B-Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas). Bantam/Spectra, 1988.  160 pp. Mass-market paperback, $3.50. ISBNISBN-10: 0553274813,ISBN-13: 978-0553274813

Drive-In II. Bantam/Spectra, 1989. Mass-market paperback. 180 pp. ISBN-10: 055327905X, ISBN-13: 978-0553279054

The Drive-In: Bus Tour. Subterranean Press, 2005. 230 pp. Hardcover. ASIN B000P0UGTA  

I first encountered the utterly outré world of the Drive-In through the original Bantam/Spectra paperback, purchased shortly after publication in 1988. Even though the subtitle—“A ‘B’ Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas”—gave fair warning of what was to follow, the novel nevertheless surprised and stunned me. I’d heard the term gonzo before, but this was the first time I’d read gonzo horror, in which anything could—and eventually did—happen. I remember thinking that the Popcorn King had to rank among the most bizarre, most frightening creations I had yet read. And I remember reminding myself to check for a sequel when it came out, since the final pages of The Drive-In made it clear that whatever controlled Drive-in World was not finished with Jack, Bob, Crier, and Sam.

Then, as so often happens, life intruded. Teaching. Writing. Family. Etc.

I am not certain that I even noted when the sequel was published.

Then, earlier this year, I had the opportunity to become re-acquainted with Joe Lansdale at the World Horror Convention 2012 and decided after returning home to check out the Drive-In books for Kindle.

I’m glad I did.

The three individual volumes blend nicely to create a larger meta-fiction, a narrative about memory and reality, while managing to maintain the anything-goes attitude of the first. What begins as a seemingly random story of horror and dissolution ultimately becomes much, much  more.

The first volume, The Drive-In (A B-Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas), begins with a fairly conventional SF trope: a relatively small group of people are isolated, placed under increasing pressures by an unknown outside force, and finally reveal the true nature of humanity. That the isolation entails a dusk-to-dawn horror feature at The Orbit Drive-In; that the pressures stem from hunger, thirst, and madness; and that the outside pressure may or may not be from bulbous-eyes aliens in the process of making a low-budget cosmic horror flik—all of these elements blend to create scenes almost unendurably graphic, exploitative, and…well…and compelling. Throw in the mutated Popcorn King, and what at first seemed conventional becomes increasingly and distinctly unconventional.

The second book, Drive-In II, centers on a journey from The Orbit and toward whatever awaits at the end of the highway the survivors of book one follow. The road is rutted and rough, with grass growing in the cracks and jungle hedging in on both sides; the camper Jack and the others drive seems not to use gas at the normal rate; and they are surrounded by oddities…including dinosaurs. Instead of a concentrated view of an isolated group in a restricted environment, Lansdale gives us a smaller group traveling through a progressively more hostile landscape, searching for answers and resolution. They meet with Grace, who, as befits her name, provides a measure of salvation for the men, physically, morally, and sexually. And—with the Popcorn in the first book—the novel climaxes with the revelation of another monstrous aberration in Drive-In World, Popalong Cassidy.

The third book—perhaps reflecting the years between its composition and that of the earlier ones—has a slightly different tone. Jack, Grace, and several others tire of life at the end of the highway and, using a school bus they have re-designed to meet their purposes, set out to find…whatever is out there, whatever is controlling Drive-In World. The part played by the Popcorn King in the first book and Popalong Cassidy in the second is more or less taken by Ed, the gigantic catfish that swallows the troupe of explorers, bus and all. Their immediate quest is to escape alive; their ultimate quest is to reach the steps that apparently lead from Drive-In World to…somewhere else.

All three books are linked by the presence of the narrator, Jack, although other characters come, take part in the adventures, and (usually) die. They are linked by the sense that more is happening than can be accounted for by observation and experience—especially when Jack’s dreams of alien producers and directors become more and more vivid. They are linked by a landscape that begins minimal—the parking area for The Orbit itself (an evocative name, that)—and gradually expands to include the highway; various way stations where, horrible as the places may be, the characters can rest and recoup; and finally the ‘outer world’ itself, the place where reality reveals itself at last. Perhaps.

The Complete Drive-In is not for the timid, the tender-hearted, the queasy, or the judgmental. Language is obsessively harsh…as befits the situations and the settings. Characters seem engrossed to a pathological level with genitalia, both male and female; and sex becomes almost as commonplace as breathing. Cannibalism (it is all right to eat children, apparently, but only if they are cooked?), crucifixion, suicide, rape, murder—all become almost hackneyed experiences in the precarious existence of Drive-In World.

And, just as characters—and readers—begin to feel comfortable with the situation as is, Lansdale jerks that complacency away, twists, reverses, complicates, and generally exacerbates evil, heartlessness, mindlessness, and self-centeredness and raises the stakes to where they become unbearable…until everyone becomes used to the new status quo, and the process begins again.

But readers interested in razor-sharp satire on all things human—actions, morals, values, religion, media (especially film and television), expectations, and assumptions—may find The Complete Drive-In both fascinating and thought-provoking.

And when you sit down to read…don’t forget the popcorn!

      

D.J. Butler, HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL (ROCK BAND FIGHTS EVIL, I)

D.J. Butler. Hellhound on My Trail (Rock Band Fights Evil, 1).  Carter Reid, illustrator. Kindle edition. 257 kb (est. 108pp.) Ebook $0.99. ASIN B006YEK5HE.

One of favorite books that I’ve never read was published in 1926 by John Masefield under the intriguing title Odtaa.

When asked to explain the curious title, he reportedly replied, with an absolutly straight face, “One damned thing after another!”

In more ways than one, that response seems eminently suitable for Butler’s Hellhound on My Trail as well. It is a story that never gives anyone a rest, neither its characters nor its readers—it’s just one thing after another. It is literally (using the word literally for a change) about damned things: the hellhound, of course, the Baal Zavuv, and its minions, the fly-like Zvuvim, to name a few. Since at least one member of the eponymous rock band that forms the nucleus of characters is an escapee from Hell, there is no question but that the novel is about one (or more) damned thing after another (or more than one) damned thing.

And as events turn out, the primary quest in the novel is to recover an artifact lost by Satan, who by all accounts represents the zenith (or would it be nadir?) of damned things.

Even the good guys seem to fit the idea. One is an angel—or a demon—that long ago escaped from Hell. Another is a man/woman/horse/falcon whose only consistent physical characteristic is his/her/its long silvery tail. Then there is the narcoleptic wizard, who claims that he only falls asleep while conjuring due to a curse.

Even the one ‘purely’ human character is damned—doubly damned, as it were. He bears such guilt over the gang-slaying of his younger brother that he is damned to seeing his brother’s ghost everywhere … except when he is drunk; he seeks death, knowing that he is already condemned to hell. On the other hand (the left hand, it turns out, the sinister hand) he discovers that he has been marked in some mysterious way for Hell anyway and is…well, need I say it?... damned.

If Masefield hadn’t already taken the title, perhaps Butler should have.

There is more to Hellhound on My Trail, however, than just multiple plays on damnation; and that is what makes it such a delightful(?) and energizing read. There are plenty of traditional religious figures in the tale—Raphael, for example, has a relatively well-developed cameo—but the deeper one gets into the world of Hellhound, the less recognizable those figures become as Butler weaves his own narrative spells, transforming, creating, and  re-creating creatures, legends, history, in a sense the cosmos itself at will.

That he does this so adroitly is not surprising. My first experience with Butler’s prose was with his non-fiction study of temple imagery in the Book of Mormon, Plain and Precious Things (http://michaelrcollings.blogspot.com/2012/03/d.html). His ability to translate fairly prosaic passages into discussions of imagery and symbolism capable of opening new vistas of understanding impressed me greatly as I read it; not everyone can make a scholarly treatise on a religious topic read almost as fluidly as a novel. So when I approached his fiction, I expected nothing less than a well-written, well-told story.

Hellhound on My Trail is that. Butler has crafted the story through the medium of a nigh-on perfect style. Mike—the one undisputed human—narrated the story, struggling to deal with the recurring vision of his brother and the inhospitable world ‘out there,’ that is, with reality. When inexplicable things start happening, he keeps trying to explain, to sort, to define, even when events move so rapidly that before he has finished asking a question he is knee-deep (hip-deep, then chest-deep) in the next crisis.

Nor do the various damned characters make it easy for him to tell the tale. Sentences are abruptly interrupted with sound effects—Bang! Crash!Snick!—then proceed as best they can, rollicking and rocking their way to a conclusion.

Hellhound on My Trail sets out to speak to a specific audience, one as interested in the special effects as in the subtle nuances of style, one looking beyond the present battle to the next, one eager for the revelation that will make sense of everything…and at the same time upset every assumption readers have made.

It succeeds well. For that audience—one that is on the alert for the next Odtaa—Butler has just the book for you.

And it’s only the first volume of four. So get ready for a wild ride….

[And do watch for Carter Reid's great cover illustration! It's a powerful introduction to what you will find inside.]

Recommended.

BY THE WAY: Thursday, April 26, 2012 will be the BOOK BOMB DAY for the Rock Band Fights Evil series--there will never be a better time to give it a try.

Eric G. Swedin, ANASAZI EXILE -- Action-adventure, Thriller, and Much More

Eric G. Swedin. Anasazi Exile: A Science Fiction Novel. Borgo Press, 19 March 2012. 308 pp., trade paperback, $14.99. ISBN-10: 1434444031; ISBN-13: 978-1434444035. 

Anasazi Exile opens with two scenes that firmly establish its science-fictional underpinnings.  In the first— “1241 A.D., Western Europe”—something drops from the sky, deposits a naked woman onto the ground, and flies away, leaving a group of peasants dumbfounded, terrified, and fearful of the obvious witchcraft.

The second— “The Center Place, 236^th Year of the Master”—seems more directly connected to the book’s title, since it recounts the murder of a seemingly immortal tyrant who has controlled a native village situated in a canyon reminiscent of the Anasazi homeland.

Chapter One moves us to “Present Day, New Mexico” and an archaeological dig exploring the ruins of Chaco Canyon. From there until the midpoint, it seems as if the novel might have forgotten its opening scenes. The book seems a well-written action-adventure thriller, complete with an Indiana-Jones-style archaeologist, a beautiful and smart research assistant, and an extraordinary landscape. First there is a suitably extraordinary discovery—a unique artifact that will potentially change everything science knows about the Anasazi. Then, almost immediately on the heels of the discovery, an attempt by unknown bad guys to steal the find…and along the way, murder both the archeologist and his assistant.

Fortunately, as the story has previously (and aptly) intimated, Harry Deacon is a match for them. He eliminates both intruders but not before Brenda Finnegan is seriously wounded and hospitalized. Even there, however, the evil-doers are present, trying to kill the unconscious Brenda in her hospital room.

And then something extraordinary occurs.

The novel, already interesting and engaging, ramps up as bam, bam, bam, readers are confronted by the unexpected and the inexplicable. Dead bodies come to life; wounded people almost miraculously recover in hours rather than days; saviors appear in the middle of nowhere to rescue characters about to be executed.

And before we know it, we are in the midst of a science-fiction novel of aliens and alien planets; pre-historical exploitation of proto-human civilizations; and quasi-immortal beings with the ability to heal and extend human longevity.

Suddenly, surprisingly, yet inevitably everything snaps into place, and we realize that each detail, from the first prologue title to the final lines, fits into a complex, well-planned, and well-executed narrative. It is philosophical, and at the same time fast-paced; it deals with SF speculation, and at the same time has sufficient rough-and-tumble action to keep readers tied to the pages.

If there is a flaw in the storytelling, it might be that the conclusion seems a bit abrupt…at least that is what I thought when I finished. After a bit of rumination, however, I realized two things: 1) that there really isn’t any other way for it to conclude, given the natures of the humans and the aliens involved; and 2) that it opens the way for further exploration of the interchanges between Alpha and Earth…for sequels that would grow out of the narrative rather than being imposed upon it.

All in all, Anasazi Exile is a solid read, building on Swedin’s knowledge of warfare and revealing an interest in and facility with characters, landscapes, and conflicts.

Highly recommended.

SeaWard -- A Filamental Emblem

From chalky cliffs, the ocean tapestries

Woven spirals. For the moment, motions

Shift—I become horizon line

While waves curl out- and up-ward, vertical.

From their mystic core, concentric crests

Expand in waves and troughs, manipulating

Blue and green, grey and white into

illusion…weaving warm tapestry of light—

Until wild waves attenuate in tidal

Pools with urchins and anemones,

Then silently unravel to white-frost foam

That sighs into damp sands, and disappears.

* * * * * * * *

Filamental Emblems

The popularity of Emblems as literary and artistic forms dates from the Sixteenth-century, when books appeared that printed an engraving of a common object—a rose bush, a mariner’s compass, a spider and web, a beehive—along with a scriptural passage, a quotation from a Greek or Latin philosopher, or a short poem explaining how the object implicitly represented a specific moral, spiritual, or religious truth available to the contemplative reader/viewer. As time passed, those simple images became increasingly complex and suggestive, until finally a sin­gle engraving might communicate iconographically—or hieroglyphically, to use the terminology of the times—such vast concepts as Life, Death, Nature, Justice, God, and Eternity.

By the middle of the Seventeenth-Century, Emblem books were common and were among the most popular books of the day. English poets such as George Wither and Frances Quarles firmly established the tradition with their virtually encyclopedic treatment of major literary and artistic symbol sequences, while continental writers transformed the simple Emblem into a complex metaphorical system of universal correspondences embracing key theological, philo­sophical, moral, and ethical Truths. Other Seventeenth-Century poets, such as the more fa­mous metaphysical poets John Donne, George Herbert, and Richard Crashaw, did not specifi­cally write in Emblematic forms but often demonstrated in their poetry an awareness of the Emblem tradition—of the intricate relationship between image and word, between common­place form and its larger significance.

These modern Filamental Emblems extend the metaphor-making capacity of Renaissance emblems. Filamental Emblems abstract rather than represent, suggest rather than preach; but they similarly attempt to re-create subjects simultaneously in word and image. Each combines poetry with the visual art of intricate crocheting, often incorpo­rating as few as two or three strands of fine sewing thread in subtle arrangements of colors that vary from round to round, providing as many possibilities for nuance and blending as might an artist’s palette. A single Emblem may include thirty or more individual threads, each color selected for its relation to the overall pattern, to other colors surrounding it, or to the cen­tral idea, image, or symbol—embodied in verbal form in the overlaying poem—that the Em­blem explores.

On Writing Reviews

Several days ago, someone approached me to ask a question, prefacing it with that terrifying phrase, “With all due respect….”

Now, in normal parlance, that phrase introduces a question or comment at which the respondent will probably take offense. In my case, my first thought was “Okay, what did I do wrong this time?”

As it turned out, the situation was not as dire as it might have been. The question was about a recommendation I had recently made for a story. My questioner—and apparently others—wondered why I had given it a strong recommendation, which, after reading it, they felt that it had not merited.

We spoke for a while and eventually came to an understanding.

Still, the question concerned me, and I decided that this might be a good time to discuss writing reviews, particularly from my perspective as both literary scholar and novelist/short story writer/poet.

For me, a review has a single purpose: To impel the reader to the book. If the reader has not yet read the work in question, the review should provide assessment, backgrounds, and matrix for reading and understanding the work. That might include historical or biographical backgrounds that the reviewer has gleaned over years of reading; or it might relate to the genre in question; or it might deal with particular difficulties in the text that the reviewer might be able to unravel.

If the reader has already read the book, the review should provide additional information about it that would enable the reader to engage more completely with the text on a second reading. It might give insight into themes and images; it might direct attention to characters, motivations, and actions; it might suggest alternative ways of viewing the book. But in any case, it presents the book—as written—in such a light as to emphasize its strengths while, if necessary, defining any crucial flaws.

I have a number of self-imposed rules about reviewing that have helped me through the years.

First, I do not like writing negative reviews—I have never performed a hatchet job on a novel or story. When I write books about writers, for example, I try to contact them to let them know several things: 1) I emphasize the fact that I do not waste my time writing about books that I do not like; 2) I promise not take up their time with needless questions but request permission to ask for help occasionally; and 3) I assure them that I do not write articles, reviews, or books in which I talk extensively about the books I wish they had written. If I have a critique, I will base it on the text; if I find something valuable, I will likewise base it on the text.

With reviews, these rules become even more important. When I began my poetry-writing classes at Pepperdine, I would generally ask students to raise their hands if they had ever written a poem. Since the course was explicitly on poetry, nearly everyone would. At which point, I would congratulate them for committing a major act of courage and state that by virtue of writing a poem, each was in fact a superior human being.

And I meant it.

To put oneself on paper—in a poem, a story, a novel, a screenplay—requires courage and commitment; to place the resulting words before the public requires even more so.

As a result, I will generally excuse myself from writing a review if there is nothing I can find worthwhile about a book, particularly if other reviewers have found the book of value. They obviously approached it from different perspectives than I, from different backgrounds and from different purposes, and found something in it to recommend. I won’t argue with that.

Second, I respect anyone with the commitment and perseverance to complete a short story, let alone a novel. Therefore, I will treat that work with the greatest consideration I can. I may disagree with details of writing style or expression; but if the writer approaches the subject from a unique or important perspective I will concentrate on that. I may find the characters flat, but if they manage to communicate a theme or explore a serious topic, I will emphasize the latter over the former. If the flaws reveal a depth of incompetence that overshadows all else I will—as in the case of a recent novel that read more like a freshman composition essay than a professionally written narrative—I will excuse myself.

Third, I believe that my backgrounds in teaching and scholarship often give me unique perspectives on books. In writing a review-article on Stephen King’s Desperation, for example, I found that several lines and phrases in the book suggested certain 17^th-century metaphysical poets. I knew that King was widely read; his allusions to writers past and present in The Shining and other stories demonstrates that. Linking those references opened the book to me in ways that—in most likelihood—other readers might not have noted.

Similarly, a recent review of a zombie tale was heavily influenced by readings I had done on the Black Death in 13^th-century Europe and other epidemics throughout history. This colored the directions I took in the review while—I hope—giving readers of my piece and prospective readers of the story a hook, something to link the story with wider implications.

Fourth, I understand that neither I nor any reviewer is infallible. Reviewers are (mostly) human. We (frequently) make mistakes. We may like a book that everyone else thinks is a bomb. We may dislike a book that eventually becomes a classic. Dan Wells recently posted a link to “11 ‎Early Scathing Reviews of Works Now Considered Masterpieces” (http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/124207) that demonstrates the chilling fact that even the most adept of reviewers can miss the point entirely.

Conversely, one has only to read sterling reviews of long-forgotten bestsellers to realize that praising a book may not necessarily mean that it is good…or that it has staying power.

Fifth, I try to be honest…emphasis on try. While reading a book or story, and immediately after finishing it, I ask myself one question: “Did you enjoy reading that?”

If the answer is “no,” I try to figure out why…and usually the answer rests on writing skills that are not capable of handling the plot, characters, and setting well enough.

If the answer is “yes”…ahhh…then I allow myself the luxury of figuring out why and, in the process, of re-living the best parts of the book. Those are usually the parts that end up on reviews.     

Reviews are re-views, ‘again-looks’ at works to determine what might be valuable in them. And ultimately, they are self-centered: they concentrate on what I think potential readers might find useful or, in the best of cases, entertaining.

Lisa Morton, MONSTERS OF L.A.--A Fright on Every Corner

Lisa Morton. Monsters of L.A. Bad Moon Books, 2011, 320 pp. Trade paperback, $20.00. ISBN-10: 0983779937, ISBN-13: 978-0983779933. E-book edition, Crossroad Press & Bad Moon Books, April 2012, 1939 kb. $3.99. ASIN B007TVUY0Y.

I lived in and around the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area for something like 40 years—in Riverside (a bit far but still in the shadow of L.A.), Orange, Whittier, Westwood, Malibu, and over the Santa Monica mountains in Thousand Oaks. During that time, I used up a good deal of mileage in L.A. proper.

So when I saw the title of Lisa Morton’s Bram Stoker nominated collection, Monsters of L.A., I was curious to see how she would treat the place. L.A. is in many senses a wonderland of opportunities and possibilities…but it does have its real-life monsters, too.

After finishing the final story, my first thought was, ‘I knew some of those people!’ She has managed to create multiple fictions, some of them incorporating murderous maniacs; image-centered narcissists; nearly invisible people shunned, when not ignored, by society; media-oriented obsessives, and a score of others. And they all felt familiar. This was L.A., if not on its glittering, glitzy surface, then certainly in some of its seamier backstreets and darker shadows.

Morton’s approach is simplicity itself (which makes it such a good idea): how would the traditional creatures of horror manifest themselves in the complex, urban environment of L.A. The table of contents alone is valuable as an encyclopedia of monsters: Frankenstein (although here the ‘monster’ is a scarred veteran nicknamed “Frank” and the villain is a surgeon named “Dr. Victor”); Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (it’s a bit of a shocker to discover that Dr. J is female, but the rest of the story follows inevitably from that shift); The Phantom; The Hunchback; Dracula (this story is worth reading if only for the final line!); The Bride; The Mummy; The Invisible Woman (as poignant as it is horrific); The Mad Scientist; The Werewolf (which exploits rockers and groupies perfectly); The Haunted House (a uniquely gentle story with a new perspective on hauntings); Cat People; The Creature (which could conceivably someday actually happen in L.A.); The Alien; Kaiju; The Devil; The Slasher; The Killer Clown (I’ve seen the original sign, and it is eerie at best); The Urban Legend; and The Zombie.

The stories vary from gritty and realistic—“Frankenstein” is horrifying without actually evoking a monster—to the clearly fantastical—Dracula appears in propria persona, as it were, as a blood-sucking, immortal movie star capable of pulling down $12,000,000 per film. When trouble begins brewing between him and an upstart young actor..., well, steps must be taken.

The monsters themselves vary widely from the benign to the openly and actively malignant. For anyone interested in blood and guts, there are plenty of opportunities here; those drawn to more subtle delineations of horror, however, will not be disappointed.

Each tale is carefully crafted and skillfully written. The shorter pieces act as suggestive, evocative vignettes; the longest introduce sufficient turns of plot and character to merit greater space. Characters are treated fairly. Even when they approach being stereotypes, there is a twist, a shift that centers them and makes them (more or less) human.

I moved from Southern California six years ago and have since lived a peaceful life in creature-less Southern Idaho. Reading Monsters of L.A.  was like a quick trip home without the complications of flight and car rental. It enabled me to re-visit old haunts and introduced me to new ones. Morton is to be congratulated on her achievements.

Highly recommended.

Islands--A Filamental Emblem

Islands

In Memoriam:

Bryan and Monte Bolton

January 5, 1992

      From the shore, the Channel Islands mound

Indistinctly grey against grey skies;

Barely separate from waters that surround,

      They rest like invert wombs. Sheer turrets rise

At Cathedral Point—but we cannot see

Such detail from our shore. It strains our eyes

      Just to trace dark, arcing curves of scree

That mark sharp land from mapless ocean ways.

Cloud-shrouded, the islands keep their mystery

      From those of us on shore. Their lead-grey bays

And coves hide secrets frightening and dark;

Beneath thick storm-whipped spray and dusky haze,

      The islands terrify.  Their outlines mark

Blind boundaries of our human, mortal vision.

Grey shapes, they stand stark symbols of the dark,

      Of loss, of harsh unbearable collision—

Love with Faith. To live without the Love …

Unthinkable; to endure the indecision

      Loss implies …impossible. Above

Deep mist-grey mounds, cloud cover billows, parts

For one sufficient moment. Like a dove

      Of sheerest light, the sun breaks through with darts

That glance from rock to sea and back again.

A gleam … a fragment light … then gone …. But hearts

      That wear the weight of grief and twisting pain

Reach up, entwined with that faint light—rebound

With faith and love to rest on Heaven’s plain:

      Barely held by waters that surround,

Infinite blue beneath celestial skies,

Seen from our shores, the Channel Islands mound.

* * * * * * * *

 

Filamental Emblems

The popularity of Emblems as literary and artistic forms dates from the Sixteenth-century, when books appeared that printed an engraving of a common object—a rose bush, a mariner’s compass, a spider and web, a beehive—along with a scriptural passage, a quotation from a Greek or Latin philosopher, or a short poem explaining how the object implicitly represented a specific moral, spiritual, or religious truth available to the contemplative reader/viewer. As time passed, those simple images became increasingly complex and suggestive, until finally a sin­gle engraving might communicate iconographically—or hieroglyphically, to use the terminology of the times—such vast concepts as Life, Death, Nature, Justice, God, and Eternity.

 

By the middle of the Seventeenth-Century, Emblem books were common and were among the most popular books of the day. English poets such as George Wither and Frances Quarles firmly established the tradition with their virtually encyclopedic treatment of major literary and artistic symbol sequences, while continental writers transformed the simple Emblem into a complex metaphorical system of universal correspondences embracing key theological, philo­sophical, moral, and ethical Truths. Other Seventeenth-Century poets, such as the more fa­mous metaphysical poets John Donne, George Herbert, and Richard Crashaw, did not specifi­cally write in Emblematic forms but often demonstrated in their poetry an awareness of the Emblem tradition—of the intricate relationship between image and word, between common­place form and its larger significance.

These modern Filamental Emblems extend the metaphor-making capacity of Renaissance emblems. Filamental Emblems abstract rather than represent, suggest rather than preach; but they similarly attempt to re-create subjects simultaneously in word and image. Each combines poetry with the visual art of intricate crocheting, often incorpo­rating as few as two or three strands of fine sewing thread in subtle arrangements of colors that vary from round to round, providing as many possibilities for nuance and blending as might an artist’s palette. A single Emblem may include thirty or more individual threads, each color selected for its relation to the overall pattern, to other colors surrounding it, or to the cen­tral idea, image, or symbol—embodied in verbal form in the overlaying poem—that the Em­blem explores.

John Kammeyer, THE NEPHITE ART OF WAR: Toward an Understanding of the Setting and Times of the Book of Mormon

John Kammeyer. The Nephite Art of War. Smashwords. 5 April 2012. E-book edition, $5.99. Available online at: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/149276#longdescr.

Detailed description from Smashwords.com:

In these days of increasing “wars and rumors of wars” a book showing how the Nephites coped with war is both timely and useful.

 
This book rests on the assumption that the Book of Mormon is a historical document proceeding from a specific time and place. It is not a history in the modern sense. Hugh Nibley wrote that one of the most popular forms of literature in 600 BC was the biography. The intent was to show one had lived righteously and done his duty to God and his fellow man. It wasn’t, in the modern sense, an account showing chronologically everything he’d done in life. The Book of Mormon tends to be a series of biographies strung together, one prominent person after another. The war chapters of the book are part and parcel with the non-war chapters; they are all biographies.

Structurally, the Book of Mormon is a study in leadership, or failure of leadership. Indeed, to Mormon, the lives of Nephite leaders were more interesting than the details of Nephite history.

Militarily, he depicts the Nephite and Lamanite commanders he found the most interesting, which means those who contributed most to his own professional education.

                 
The Book of Mormon has echoes of Clausewitz in that it is a study of warfare as a phenomenon, and not just as an event, and therefore has lessons and principles that transcend any one period of time. Mormon was interested in the interface between professionalism and righteousness in the commanders, and the interplay of politics, (or in his terms righteousness and wickedness) in the people, and how these affected the outcome of war.

John Kammeyer’s The Nephite Art of War is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the Book of Mormon as a reflection of a particular culture over time. It is based on two assumptions: first, that the Book of Mormon is not a product of the 19^th century but rather is an authentic Iron Age treatise, and that as such the events it describes should follow in large measure patterns discovered by modern scholars in other such writings; and second, that John Sorenson has accurately located the setting for the book in ancient Mesoamerica.

Given those two assumptions, Kammeyer enter into a detailed discussion of essentially all things military: the governments, communities, and economies required for specific types of warfare; differences between Nephite and Lamanite governance and how those determine various actions described in the text; elementary issues such as weapons, logistics, fortifications, armor, spies and reconnaissance, and, in particular detail, banners as they relate to the Title of Liberty.

Throughout, he takes the same tack in approaching subjects. After defining his terms, he discusses how that particular element manifested itself in the military traditions that Lehi, Laman and Lemuel, and Nephi would have brought with them from Jerusalem—he relies heavily on scholarly discussions of Davidic warfare in roughly 1000 B.C., well before the time of Lehi’s self-imposed exile. Then he examines particular verses, lines, even phrases from the Book of Mormon—many of them familiar from frequent readings—and demonstrates how, beneath the 19^th century structures and diction, each unfolds to reveal a more intricate, more complex understanding of ancient warfare.

Kammeyer makes clear in the opening pages that such deep-structures (to borrow a 20^th century phrase) would not have been known to Joseph Smith through treatises on war available to him. He summarizes the contents of a number of contemporary books, i.e., books pub lished between about 1750 and 1850, demonstrating that their assumptions about and explanations of warfare do not correspond with what actually occurs in the Book of Mormon.

Gradually, through his meticulous re-creations of time and place, his point becomes increasingly convincing—that the Book of Mormon belongs to its time and place, not to any setting Joseph Smith could have learned about from studies and scholars during his lifetime.  

This is not to say that the sole purpose of The Nephite Art of War is to prove the Book of Mormon; it is not. Rather, it is to demonstrate that in this particular respect—warfare—it is demonstrably unlike 19^th-century or modern understanding, but that it fits recent discoveries about ancient warfare admirably.

It is not an easy book to read. On any page there may be anything from a handful to a score of key terms to be defined; and the intensive explorations of studies of warfare may be unfamiliar and therefore difficult for more generalized readers.

It does, however, offer moments of illumination on nearly every page. Simple phrasing in the Book of Mormon suddenly becomes almost a short-hand for wider applications once the necessary backgrounds are given.

I am not a military scholar in any sense; nor am I to any great degree a Book of Mormon scholar. I am, however, fairly widely read and (I hope) reasonably intelligent. I found The Art Nephite Art of War to be engaging, enlightening, thought-provoking, and ultimately convincing. Please give it a try.

Ray Garton, Crucifax—The Pied Piper Lives On

Ray Garton. Crucifax. Pocket, 1988. 388 pp. Paperback. ISBN 0-671-62629-9. E-book, 2010. $4.39. ASIN: B003VPWZRM ASIN: B003VPWZRM

Crucifax is important horror fiction because it is not about horrors — or rather, because it is about real horrors. Garton’s tale masterfully recreates adolescent alienation within the slick, me-centered, emotionally myopic, ultimately uncaring adult world of California’s San Fernando Valley, with the caveat that what happens there can (and does) happen everywhere.

To be sure, there are “monsters” in the novel — preeminently the malevolent, mock-punk Mace, whose appearance is foreshadowed by a mysterious thunderstorm; whose identity is never clarified; who refers to himself as “the weeds in your garden” and “what happens ... when no one ... is paying attention”; and who, very like Stephen Kings’s Randall Flagg, mysteriously disappears when the evil he generates has run its course. And there are Mace’s “eyes”— tusked, golden-eyed, rat-like creatures that infest sewers and basements and walls, and that terrify and kill.

But transcending the merely monstrous, Crucifax demonstrates a more important function of horror. Narrative monsters become metaphors for real monsters — for the fear, alienation, rejection, insecurity, and lack of love that drive too many adolescents to drugs and violence and suicide. Garton’s rhetoric of horror amplifies the real threat of uncaring adults who do not or cannot communicate with their children. There are no true families in Crucifax; there are only loose agglomerates of biologically related adults and children who occasionally occupy the same physical space.

Into that void come surrogates: the rigidly dogmatic Reverend Bainbridge, who demands that his Calvary Youth live according to impossible standards that even he cannot meet; the Laurel Teen Center, where parents can send troubled children and be instantly relieved of any further responsibilities (especially since the Center accepts all major insurance plans); and worst of all, Mace, who understands precisely what teenagers need and gives it to them: “Mace doesn’t push any rules onto us, he doesn’t want us to change, he wants us the way we are. He takes care of us, pays ... pays attention to us, listens.”

Garton’s parable of a lost generation is sexually graphic (including an extended foray into brother-sister incest) and graphically violent but never without purpose. He uses the motif of Mace as Pied Piper (complete with rats, music, disappearing children, and — too late — grieving parents) who forces adults to “pay the Piper” at the expense of their children. In doing so, Garton transforms Crucifax into more than just an exercise in literary horror. The novel becomes an admonition and a warning. Something evil is happening, for which parents may conveniently blame the schools, the media, drugs, rock music, or any other scapegoats they can find; but, as one character states bluntly at the end of the novel, the ultimate failure lies with the parents themselves.

Garton’s narrative moves with smoothly from subtle intimations of change to the bloody aftermath of a ritual mass suicide on the order of Jonestown. Through it all, he never loses empathy with his characters. There is rarely a sense that someone is paraded onto the stage only to be destroyed in a particularly vicious way. Moreover, Crucifax tackles difficult problems head on. It suggests no easy resolutions, largely because there are none. Instead it anatomizes the problem, identifying the critical junctures at which parent-child relationships deteriorate and demonstrating how easily those fragile relationships might be subverted. At the same time it never forgets that it is a novel, that it must impel readers from one episode to the next with increasing intensity and purpose. On all levels, Crucifax is a remarkable achievement.

[This review is reprinted from my collection Perspectives: Views, Reviews, and Interviews. 2012. Available online at: Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Perspectives-Views-Reviews-Interviews-ebook/dp/B004ZMA784/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1334355632&sr=1-1

And

Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/58012 ]