Platypus of Truth

"The Scarlet Letter" has always conjured up pictures in my mind of dull and trite high school "readings." I highly enjoyed literature class in high school, and there were very few books I didn't like, but there were a few that always left me scratching my head as to why they were included. I was always worried that somehow "The Scarlet Letter" would fall into that category. Unlike the rest of America, I missed out on this educational "rite of passage" due to a move in the middle of my junior year. So for years I was left wondering: what's so great about Hawthorne. After all, how interesting could a book about how mean and nasty the Puritans were and an affair be? My interest was peaked, however, when I read "The Marble Faun" and "Young Goodman Brown" this past summer. I liked what I read. If this was Hawthorne, then I wanted more of it. That led to picking up "The Scarlet Letter" this past month. I wo...

Today's book is "Eifelheim," by Michael Flynn. Here's the down and dirty: Aliens crash-land in 14th century Germany on the eve of the Black Death and are befriended by a reclusive scholastic. What Flynn gets right: The medieval worldview is presented in all its richness and Flynn renders Pastor Dietrich and his flock in a way that makes them feel three-dimensional and contemporary. What Flynn misses: Perhaps the sciences are a different story, but I kept thinking throughout the modern portions of the book that his academics don't speak or act like any of the academics I've known. I also have to confess a bias against Cliometrics. When I see a Cliometrician in a story, I have flashbacks to Jeff Goldbloom in Jurassic Park. Closing thoughts: If you like the middle ages or quirky sci-fi twists, this is your book. In spite of my dislike for the modern portions, I give it two thumbs up.

This past Thursday, I gave my lecture on the development of Gothic literature. It had been almost a year in the making. Aside from the fact that there is ever so much more research I could have done, here are a few of the things I learned along the way. 1. Edgar Allan Poe was the first American writer to attempt to earn a living solely from his writings. 2. Charles Williams, Bram Stoker, Edith Nesbit, Aleister Crowley, and Arthur E. Waite all belonged to the same occult society: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 3. Crowley's famous "do what thou wilt" is proceeded by the injunction to "do no harm." 4. H. P. Lovecraft isn't so much scary as he is disturbing. 5. Poe helped pioneer the genre of detective fiction. 6. Williams may in fact be invoking the sephiroth in his repeated statements: in the Omnipotence, under the Mercy, the City, under the Protection, etc. I don't have any more lectures lined up as of yet, but this was certainly t...

At this time last year I was in the grip of a horrid stomach problem resulting from an injury. Four doctors and a year later and the situation is much more manageable, but I still live in daily discomfort. I can't remember anymore what it's like not to have a hyper-sensitive stomach that's perpetually full of gas. It's a constant reminder that fits in with the Lenten season. In the words of a church friend we remember: "that the one who's the lord of our joy is also the lord of our pain."

I'm giving a lecture in less than a month on the evolution of Gothic and Horror literature. I've gone through reams of Poe, some Hawthorne, and jumped the Atlantic to pick up some Charles Williams. As it comes down to the wire, I have finally launched into that master of horror, H. P. Lovecraft. My initial brush with Lovecraft in the form of "Dagon" and "The Call of Cthulhu" left me surprised. I don't know quite what I expected, but my first thought was "this is just like Poe." Indeed, it seems like that was what Lovecraft was going for. After reading a little bit of the critical commentary by S.T. Joshi, I learned that Lovecraft was conscious of being Poe's inheritor and sought to further refine and develop the genre of the American Gothic short story, or "weird tale." On that level, I think he succeeds more than admirably. Moving from Lovecraft's technique to his content, I find further similarities with Poe. Both...

Two and a half years ago, I was looking for the perfect groomsman gift to get the guys who had put up with so much just to see me get married. I thought of the usual gifts: cuff links (but they don't ever ware shirts that would require them), imported beer (but most don't drink), personalized beer mugs (see above), etc. Then I thought it might be nice for them to get something that they would actually use and enjoy. So for the guys who are supposed to be prepared for anything, I decided to go with "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks. The book was a hit. Everywhere you looked during the course of the day, you would see a groomsman squirreled away into a shady spot reading the sage green book. There was only one problem: I didn't have enough money to get my own! Just recently, my wife was kind enough to buy a copy of "The Zombie Survival Guide" for me. I read it through in one weekend and found it refreshingly witty. The main point, of cou...

As my last few posts may have already suggested, I have been having a bit of a breakthrough with my students. Though I still have frequent discipline issues to deal with and a lot of apathy and boredom to fight, I think I'm finally beginning to see the fruits of three years of hard work. When I say three years of hard work, I mean not just me but the students as well. I think that's where the breakthrough really comes; that moment when a sufficient number of students decides that they enjoy learning and that they're hard work really is beginning to pay off. Once that happens, they cease to be passive receivers of information and become true learners. A true learner is self-motivated and pursues knowledge in a variety of fields both inside and outside the classroom. Get enough students to become true-learners and it can change the tenor of a classroom and of an entire school. I don't know if that will happen, but I'm trying to encourage them as best I can.