Why I was an English Major

My freshman year at Texas A&M, I arrived about a week before the start of classes with about six hundred other young students. My long-term goal was to be a lawyer, but my short term goal was to make it through freshman year in the famous A&M Corps of Cadets. I was in the Corps because I wanted to learn leadership, and I was an English major because I wanted to be a better writer. Before long, the two merged.

Writing can be taught in almost any subject. The best professors I sat under would return my papers overflowing with carefully explained, well defined corrections. My leadership classes assigned fiction books and had us watch movies like ‘Moneyball’, where I got the chance to not only read great books, but learn from them as well.

Meanwhile, my English classes seemed desperate to make themselves meaningless.

When we weren’t analyzing the minutia of a play about people with more money and time than they knew what to do with, we had to ‘deconstruct’ the ‘artificial constructs’ of good and evil, day and night, man and woman, to show that these distinctions were merely created by words. Professors taught us that every book must be examined apart from its author as a living text. We bring our own interpretations to these stories, I was told, and we cannot allow knowledge of the author to contaminate our experience.

However, early in my junior year I took a Chaucer class taught by Dr. Brett Mize. We read The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde and spent a lot of time unpacking what Chaucer was trying to say in each work. And there is a lot. Chaucer was a genius and, properly taught, his writings are hilarious, insightful, and instructive.

I enjoyed the class so much I signed up for whatever classes by Dr. Mize were available, along with others on King Arthur and Shakespeare. Classes on books like Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory claimed to offer some commentary on the world, to pass on wisdom the authors gained through their lives. Mallory and Chaucer were very similar, they saw aspects of their culture that they liked, some they did not, and wrote praise and warnings, respectively. They both believed that the evils they faced were correctable, if not defeatable, and believed that by writing about them, they could have an impact on their readers.

However, when Dr. Mize began our class on Beowulf, I was blown away. It functions a lot like the old cartoons, like Animaniacs, except with leadership and wisdom lessons instead of humor. There are lots of asides to the tune of ‘do this, so when you’re older you’ll have good friends’ directed at younger audiences, but there are also deep messages on wisdom that I don’t doubt the older men debated among themselves.

Take for instance the juxtaposition of Hrothgar and Beowulf throughout the poem. As Dr. Mize pointed out, both have early successes, both become king largely as a result of their martial prowess, both face terrifying monsters in their old age, and the death of both results in the swift destruction of the kingdom they preserved.

The difference lies in how each responds to the terrifying monster; Hrothgar realizes he can’t win, so he waits until a hero arrives to defeat the beast and then rules Hrothgar for several more years before his death. Beowulf, in contrast, goes out to fight the dragon, is abandoned by all but one of his men, and dies even as he slays the dragon. He thus frees his people from the curse of the dragon but dooms them to be destroyed by the enemies he has held at bay.

Dr. Mize presided over several heated discussions on what was the proper course. There are a lot of different things to consider, the fact that we don’t know of anyone of young Beowulf’s caliber who could have come to his aid, as he did to Hrothgar’s. Would the dragon have continued attacking or gone back to sleep after burning a village? Beowulf is clearly aging toward the end of the poem, how much longer could he have protected his people if even if he had survived the dragon?

Much like some of the discussion exercises I participated in for World View courses, the answer for this specific scenario is less important than the values being discussed. How much does pride or timidity play into our decisions? Do we think far enough ahead about the unintended consequences of our actions? How do we set ourselves up for success in the future by how we build relationships with others? All of these are as important today in our modern world as they were for the ancients.

Unlike today, with the myriad of theories and explanations about why literature is meaningless, or what the green light in Gastby means, the purpose and message of ancient tales was clear. Stories were told to exemplify proper behavior and to teach wisdom. Poems like Beowulf were the original YA fiction, told in halls and around fires to young men and women to teach them not only how they should act, but just as importantly, why. They allowed wisdom and experiences to be passed from generation to generation so that as the old men and women passed away, the lessons they had learned would not die with them but would be passed on, hopefully saving their children from their mistakes and providing some guidance for the difficult decisions of life.

That is the true purpose of not just all fiction, but especially YA fiction. Young people growing into adulthood are becoming aware of the complexities and challenges of the world from which they were sheltered when they were children. Fiction allows us to learn by experience, without the pain of actual experience. It allows us to interact with those older and wiser even if they lived centuries in the past.  

Favorite Reads for February 11th

Articles

The Saving Power of Story on Memoria Press
One of the things I think is important in life is purpose. We need to understand not just our purpose in life, but the purpose behind what we do everyday, behind even our hobbies and the things we do for fun. This is a good reminder from Memoria Press of what one of the purposes behind stories is.

Derrida vs. the rationalists on The New Humanist
  In my opinion, Derrida and Deconstructionism is to blame not only for the decline in reading which is so often bemoaned but also for a plethora of other ills that plague our attempts to discover, transmit, and build on truth and wisdom. This article does a good job of laying out how Deconstructionism began and how it functions. The author believes that deconstruction has a lot to teach us about the human condition, and lays out some of those points in a clear manner. I disagree with almost all of his conclusions, but the article is well written and lays out the argument very well. I think it is important to read things we disagree with, not only to understand opposing view points, but to understand the things that matter to them, the questions they are asking, and the assumptions they are making. Too often our apologetics answer questions nobody is asking, and assumes things people began questioning decades ago.
I write a little bit on deconstructionism at some point if there is any interest. I think it is incredibly important, especially for writers, to understand and argue against it because of the pivotal role it has played in how reading is approached and taught in the last century.

Posts

What Is Deep POV And Why Is It Important by Tessa Emily Hall
Deep POV is one of the defining aspects of great story tell and something I'm struggling to master myself. This post is a good introduction to it and an explanation of how it works. I think Rosemary Sutcliff is one of the best at utilizing this technique, pulling you into her stories and creating a rich sense of atmosphere.

Also...
My friend Abygaile Claire just published her first book! Martin Hospitality is now available on Amazon. Check out Abi's blog The Left-Handed Typist for more information on her book, and a peek at what she has coming up next. Also, look for an interview I did with Abi to be post here in the next week.

Understanding Tolkien: Christianity

Of all the influences on Tolkien’s life and work his faith was not only the most important, but the earliest to appear.  When his mother brought him back to England from Africa after the death of his father she returned to the Catholic church, an act that resulted in her near banishment by the rest of the (mainly Baptist) Tolkien family. When his mother died only a few years later, Tolkien believed it was at least in part caused by the struggle of taking care of him and his brother in the absence of any help from her family. He thus saw his mother as a sort of martyr, who worked herself to death rather than abandon the Catholic Church. After his mother’s death, both of the Tolkien boys were raised by Father Francis Morgan, who had been a good friend to Tolkien’s mother and continued their education, having a profound impact on the rest of Tolkien’s life.

As we have seen, Tolkien was presented with two very different views of the world, the modern and the ancient, each contradicting the other in how they perceived evil, progress, fate, and much more. Tolkien believed that the men and women of both eras were making honest observations, but missing important facts and details skewed their understanding. The ancients, glorifying the epic hero, missed the human propensity to misuse power, while the modern world, blinded by atrocities and the resulting cynicism, failed to appreciate the heroism that mankind can achieve.  In Christianity, Tolkien had a timeless reference through which to view these conflicting viewpoints and see that, in many cases, they viewed opposite sides of the truth to the exclusion of the whole truth.

                In his treatment of evil Tolkien shows us a force that is powerful and real, in agreement with the ancient stories and the modern World Wars, but in contrast to many of the pacifist arguments of his age. Tolkien’s heroes face evil both from within their own ranks and from the forces of the enemy. There are two places where this can be seen most clearly, Amon Hen and Pellenor Fields. In each case, the forces of good are handicapped by actions from within their own ranks before being assaulted by overwhelming attacks. At Amon Hen, Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo, convincing him that the Fellowship cannot be trusted and effectively breaking the Fellowship of the Ring. At Pellenor Fields, the actions of a despairing Denethor pull Gandalf away from the fighting, removing the one person capable of withstanding the Witch-King of Angmar.

Both Boromir and Denethor should be heroes according to the ancients, rising above such despair and overpowering all who stand before them. According to the moderns their fall should signal the beginning of the enemy’s victory. But neither occurs. In each case the actions another are able to stall the effects of their defeat. In contrast to Boromir’s claim that he is more worthy to bear the ring, Aragorn sacrifices himself to protect the halflings, and at Pellenor Fields, instead of cowering in the face of the Witch-King, whom he cannot hope to match, Theoden charges onward, rejecting the despair which Denethor has embraced. Aragorn and Theoden each face similar temptations as their counterparts but reject them, for Tolkien understood that the evil within is powerful, but not invincible.

Sauron himself is no easy foe, to be understood or reasoned with, but neither is he nor the evil he represents the final predetermined end of the world as in Ragnarok or as some pessimists in the modern age would have us believe. Evil is a threat to man from the inside, as those of the world war recognized, but it is not an insurmountable threat. The great error of paganism, as G.K. Chesterton pointed out, is that it puts things out of place, either making them more than they really are or disregarding them entirely. What has made Tolkien such a powerful voice about evil, and nearly every other topic, over the years is that he puts things in their proper place.

               

                Fate is one of the things Tolkien believed everyone had gotten a piece of, but lacked a whole. We speak of ‘chance’, the ancients spoke of ‘Wyrd’ and nobody seems exactly sure what is going on behind it all. Tolkien believed he did.  One of the fascinating things about Tolkien is his use of details and asides to make veiled references to one grand theme or another. One of these is Tolkien’s habit of qualifying any reference he may make to chance. As Tom Shippey points out

‘Tom Bombadil says, when he rescued the hobbits from Willow -man ‘Just chance brought me then, If chance you call it’ (my emphasis). Ruin was averted in the North-lands, Gandalf says in appendix A (III) ‘because I met Thorin Oakenshield one evening on the edge of Bree. A chance-meeting, as we say in Middle-earth’ (my emphasis again)

The resulting picture that emerges, in combination with this and other references such as Gandalf’s remark that he was ‘sent back’, is of a higher power directing the events in Middle-Earth. Further examination of Tolkien’s writing shows that these and others are references to the Valar, the heavenly beings of Tolkien’s world, who are ruled by Eru, The One.

In the ancient world, fate was an impersonal, irresistible force that could be influence only slightly by the ‘undoomed man’, while in the modern world it is either ignored or seen in a similar manner. In Christendom, however, we see Fate as the will of God misunderstood by the blind. In Midgard, fate overpowers human choice and makes it as nothing, while under Christ, the will of God enables human choice, and frees us to reap the rewards of our choices.

                The fulfillment of these two beliefs can be seen in Tolkien’s treatment of the ‘little people’. The Hobbits are referred to as little people, but this can also refer to the nameless, faceless, and seemingly unimportant characters throughout the story. A central tenant of Christianity is God’s use of those the world holds in little regard, and in Lord of the Rings the fate of Middle-Earth, of the great kings and noble elves, of the great cities and ancient dwarves all rests on the actions of two lonely hobbits.  Frodo and Sam are successful in part because they are ‘little people’ and are overlooked by Sauron who is focused on the ‘great people’ in Middle-Earth. Even until the last he cannot comprehend of the hobbits as being anything more than spies.

Lord of the Rings could not have been written by someone like T.H. White, who saw in humanity only unending evil that joyed in destruction and pain and was futile to resist. Nor could it have been written by the Norsemen, who struggled to understand how a carpenter who did not pursue martial glory could save the world. So too did the modern world struggle to understand how such selflessness and humility could avail against the evil that so overwhelmed them. Frodo is a uniquely Christian hero, at once free from the terrible oppression of omnipotent evil yet at the same time enslaved to the unyielding standard of goodness in contrasts that a pagan world cannot help but admire even as it is baffled. 

Christianity allowed Tolkien to create a balanced world, one that included both good and evil, pain and beauty, joy and sorrow in a way that resonates with the world we live in. Tolkien does not turn a blind eye to the suffering of the 20th Century, nor does he attempt wish it away with easy pleasures. Middle-Earth, in it's reflection of our world, offers hope amidst the sorrow while reminding us that we are not alone. 

And that is ultimately what makes the Lord of the Rings such a great story, it portrays the Truth of good and evil.

NanoWrimo!

So I'm a hair late on this one, but I've decided to give NanoWrimo a go. Most of you are already familiar with National Novel Writing Month, but for those of you who aren't, it is a novel writing challenge in the month of November in which we will attempt to write a 50,000 word novel. To that end, here is what I'm going to try my hand at!

1. What inspired the idea for your novel, and how long have you had the idea? 

   The idea is one I've had fairly recently, after I finished Dragon of Kveldmir, I looked back and started wondering where Farndrang came from. The sword itself I wrote into the story several years ago, and while it originally was forged by the stranger, that just didn't feel right. So, then, when it was determined to have come from Karik, I started to wonder what his story was.
   Something clicked while I was watching the most recent season of the History Channel show Vikings. Ragnar Lothbrook, to me, shares a lot with Macbeth and Turin from Tolkien's The Children of Hurin. All three are tangled in fate, are presented with impossible choices, and  trapped by their decisions. So I wanted to explore the idea of fate or, as the northmen would call it, Wyrd. Do we have a choice? Are our choices between success and failure, or failure and worse failure? What did Beowulf mean when he said "Fate often spares the undoomed man, but only if his courage holds". What if his courage holds? What if he IS doomed, and his courage still holds? Would that be better than if he was doomed and his courage did not hold?

2. Describe what your novel is about!

   Vrania is a large, cold island not unlike Scandinavia with long winters and short harvests. After being sent out from their village due to famine, the young men of Ydnara go to make their own way in the world. One of them, Karik, has intentions far beyond surviving. For what happens next, I borrow from The Welsh Triads (lists of threes) and present the Triads of Karik:

   These are the three great deeds of Karik Haldsson,
   First the slaying of the dragon, for the renown it brought him
   Second the sailing of the underwaters, for the wealth it gave him
   Third the sailing of the Black Isles, for the destruction it brought about
   
   These are the three Great Ladies of Karik,
   First Elva, his mother, for the courage she gave him
   Second Ylmi, his wife, for the strength she nurtured in him
   And Third the lady Lysa, for the sons she bore him
   
   These are the three Great Warriors of Karik,
   Revik, whom none could withstand,
   Igil, whom none could outwit
   And Karik Kariksson, whom none could defeat.
   
   These are the three great tragedies of Karik
   First the Curse of the Dragon, for the doom it laid on him.
   Second the falling out he had with Ylmi
   And Third the Poisoning of Karik Kariksson
   
   These are the three great blades of Karik,
   Ulfbite, which was given him by his mother
   Farndrang which he took from the Dragon
   And Viper, the short sword he forged for himself.

   And before you ask, no I'm not entirely sure how all those are going to play out, but I've got a good idea on most. 

3. What is your book’s aesthetic? Use words or photos or whatever you like!

   My aesthetic....hmmm...very Viking with a hint of Dane. It will be in keeping with the style I used in Dragon of Kveldmir, but I've got a few new things I want to try out. Got to keep trying new things!

4. Introduce us to each of your characters!

   There's too many to fully introduce (in the tried and true tradition of the Sagas), but I'll introduce the first three. Karik is a young man who has watched his family and settlement starving since he was old enough to notice. He believes that there is a way his people can live without death constantly hovering over them. Revik is a great fighter, he and his brother Igil were better off than Karik's family, but now all three are sent out with the young men of Ydnara to make their own way in the world. Karik has plans for this....Karik always has a plan.

5. How do you prepare to write? (Outline, research, stocking up on chocolate, howling, etc.?)

   My writing preparation boils down to three things...Draw a map. Start the coffee. Re-draw the map. Plan. Drink all the coffee. Make a new plan. And on and on Ad Infinitum.
   Also lots of Youtube Playlists. You ever tried playing two videos at the same time? 4 hours of campfire noise over Light of the Seven for 4 hours? It's pretty relaxing and focusing. Though occasionally I'll get wrapped up in trying to create the perfect ambience and then...well...oh bother.

6. What are you most looking forward to about this novel?

   I'm looking forward to having fun with Karik. I think he is going to be a really fun character to write, and I think that the adventures he's going to go on will be a challenge to really write properly.

7. List 3 things about your novel’s setting.

   It's cold, except where it isn't. It's dangerous everywhere. And the whole thing takes place inside of one house. 
   Figure out that riddle if you can. 

8. What’s your character’s goal and who (or what) stands in the way?

   Karik wants to make a new life for his people, one of plenty without all this starving and fighting over food. There's three things that stand in his way in increasing order of difficulty. First, no one has sailed through the black Isles for hundreds of years, those who have tried got smashed to kindling in the ice, burned alive by lava, or smashed to kindling on the rocks. Second, there's a fair number of kings and jarls who are just fine with how things are in Vrania and would rather Karik didn't upset their rule by finding new lands and such. Third is fate, in the form of the Dragon curse (which some of you might remember being mentioned several times in The Dragon of Kveldmir). The Dragons do not like Karik. 

9. How does your protagonist change by the end of the novel?

   This is something I'm working on. Not entirely sure how Karik will react to getting punched in the face by fate at a an alarming rate. I think part of it will depend on how his relationship with Igil and Ylmi shape up. 

10. What are your book’s themes? How do you want readers to feel when the story is over?

    Adventurous. Defiant. Ready to go do great things. That's always been the point of a lot of my writing, I want people to get up from it thinking a little bit, encouraged to go do great things themselves. And also hopefully intrigued enough to read some of my other stories. 
    
    So...there you have it. The Tale of Karik Haldsson. If you haven't read The Dragon of Kveldmir, check it out for a few mentions of who Karik is and what he's done. There will be more allusions to the good Karik as well as new info on Vrania and the Black Isles coming soon...but that announcement is still a few days out...
    
    To make sure you don't miss this upcoming announcement, and to see my NanoWrimo updates and musings and encouragements, head over and like my Facebook Page! I am planning on doing a few short videos during NanoWrimo, might even give Facebook Live Streaming a try...we'll see. Any way, check it out, give me a like if you've got a spare one lying around, and have a wonderful day!