General Internet Note

Our recalcitrant internet provider has been hit-and-miss of late (to the extent that I am typing this post from our local library), so if I miss or do not reply to an e-mail, or what have you, that is probably why. At least I'm not in the middle of the school year.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic Lord's Day!

Well, I suppose I ought to post something or other. It doesn't feel any different being 18 than it does being 17, except for the pleasant feeling of being able to buy one's own ammunition, which I will probably be doing soon. :-) My gifts were as follows:

--The Magic Flute, by Mozart (from Robert)
--A movie version of Twelfth Night, with Helena Bonham-Carter, Imogen Stubbs, and Nigel Hawthorne
--The Gladiator soundtrack (I've had the far inferior "More Music From Gladiator" CD for a while; this one is considerably better)
--Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse :D
--Several shirts and a really spiffy tie
--Some black dress shoes (from my grandparents)
--Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World: 3000 BC to AD 500 (from David--a very cool book, and useful as well)
--Otello, a filmed version at the Metropolitan Opera with Placido Domingo and Renee Fleming (from Lindsey)

A book from PaperBackSwap (an online book exchange service where one sells unwanted books for credits which can then be used to purchase any book another user has posted) also arrived a few days ago unexpectedly, so it was kind of like a birthday present: When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler by David M. Glantz. A very 'me' sort of book. ;-)

Beyond that, I've been doing usual stuff, having fun resuscitating Immortality yet again--it dies surprisingly often, given its title--and having not so much fun getting trounced by Robert at Axis and Allies. After I lost Moscow, London, and Washington, D.C. to Axis might, we started a World War III feud between Germany and Japan. Japan is losing, and, you guessed it, I am the proxy Hirohito. Alas...

I hope everyone else is well. Adieu for now!

Invida aetas fugit

Today is my last day before I reach Old Geezerdom, which being interpreted is the age of 18. I remember anticipating turning "sweet sixteen." Now I've almost passed (is it sour?) 17. It's been a pretty good year--friends over last summer, the Reformation Play, Latin V, AP English Lit, the SAT, visiting Hillsdale, the bulk of Kiriana so far. Certainly not a "sour" year, if that is indeed the moniker for 17! :D

Oh, and I learned at my piano lesson yesterday that I am definitely to be learning Rachmaninoff's G Minor Prelude over the summer, which happens to be one of the coolest pieces ever. I'm fairly stoked about that. ;-)

EDIT: Kiriana reached 300 pages and over 173,000 words today!

"Cast List"

I copy David all the time simply because most of his ideas are good, so it's a compliment, not just shameless piracy. :-D David had the idea of listing actors and actresses who might play characters in his novel, were it to be made into a film. I believe I'll have a go at the same thing. ;-)

Toni Collette as Teya.

Naveen Andrews as Rashik (maybe). Mom is very much behind this choice because she thinks he's really cute as Sayid. :-)

Joaquin Phoenix as Ameth.

Naomi Harris as Lauthi.

Uma Thurman as Ranua.

Possibly Sienna Guillory as Elana.

Zooey Deschanel as the elusive Kiriana--a minor triumph for which credit goes to my brother. Almost every other actress I've looked up, wondering if she might take the role, has been repulsive to my mental image of her, and this is the first one that wasn't an instant "nope."

I have yet to find someone who would be suitable for Evah, Remon, and several others, but I'll let it rest there for the present.

The Double

I just finished Dostoevsky's The Double today. It was an interesting, fantastic read, with one of the oddest protagonists I've ever run into. Yakov Petrovitch Goliadkin is a titular councilor living in Saint Petersburg, but he is also a helpless, pitiable wreck, self-absorbed, possibly schizophrenic, confused, self-doubting, hesitant, unable to find a place in the world. Entering his world is like entering a dream state, because it's rather difficult to figure out exactly what's going on in the book. Goliadkin thinks there is a vast conspiratorial web drawing tight around him, but whether that is really so or not is not so clear. He thinks he hears, thinks he's seen, forgets whether he has done something or not, and often receives confused impressions of what is happening to him. In short, it was a rather surreal and confusing book, but nonetheless very interesting. I was glad to find that some critic described the book as "painful, almost intolerable reading." I didn't really find it intolerable, but in some places it was frustrating to try to figure out exactly what was going on--I'm not sure the reader is supposed to, though. At least it suggests I am not alone in finding it difficult to figure out.

I'd recommend it, as long as you don't mind a narrative that is more cerebral than plot-driven, and may leave you confused or at least working hard to understand it many times. A very curious story.

Allow me to introduce my friends...

Mr. and Mrs. John Donne :-D

A Riff on Writing

It is certainly no longer the anniversary of D-Day, and I got some inspiration for a subject on which to post. This blog is styled the Author's Corner, and I figure that I ought to write about writing some time. And why not now? :-)

Writing is a uniquely scrutinized field (along with acting and political speechmaking) because, unlike a shipwright or a software designer, an author's work is not only widely distributed--if he's blessed with popularity, anyway--but also a large window into his own worldview. This is not to demean any other profession, and not to say that any product of work is not an expression of one's worldview. If Dan Brown had been a software engineer, though, his programs might cause consumers headaches, but they would not have the potential to lead anyone astray. Communication of any kind can be a powerful tool, and an author is someone who, for one reason or another, wants to make a job out of communicating his opinions and his imagination through the written word. A respected author can consequently have a lot of influence for good or ill.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the Christian author, but also a great responsibility. As humble readers of the Word of God, we can be confident that we are imitators of the best possible example. But even comic book superheroes know that "with great power comes great responsibility." Winsome writing and good craft is not enough, just as eloquence is not sufficient for a pastor. A good writer will strive to write well, but he will also, and much more importantly, have something good to write about. He will recognize that style is useless without good content; unless the foundation for a compelling novel or a persuasive essay is as near the solid truth as he can get, then the finished product is a well-painted and well-packaged piece of junk (a bit like the Xbox). Not only must there be content; there must be good content as well. The core worldview in an author's work must be as close as to Biblical truth, and therefore to the truth of the real world, as he can by God's grace make it. This requires a commitment to theological humility, studying the Scriptures, and living out one's beliefs, for a good writer is not a hypocritical one.

One need not have a college degree or an encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare to write well. The Apostle Peter probably had no knowledge of The Iliad or The Epic of Gilgamesh, but he certainly managed to turn out some pretty fine letters. There is a difference, however, between amassing intellectual knowledge and being a good thinker. No one should let his mind stay lazy, and this is certainly true for a writer. If you want to speak truth to the world, to address many complex issues in your writing, to challenge or even astonish your readers with the philosophy you hold up in opposition to the vain philosophies of the world, that takes work. Language is a metaphor for thought, so it should make sense that it is useless to try to write well before having thought well. One only need listen to a few political speeches to hear what it sounds like to speak interestingly, authoritatively, sometimes even persuasively about nothing much.

I suspect it's common for people to wonder exactly what one wants to accomplish as an author. That's not a bad question, really, if you are considering an author as only a craftsman of words. But an author is also a bit of a lay theologian, a philosopher, an historian, a grammarian, a linguist, a psychologist, a sociologist, a political analyst, a scientist, and a mathematician--at least some of these--if he wishes to write widely and well. Writing draws on a host of fields, so a good author is an eager learner and a thorough researcher. And above all he must be a humble recipient of the Truth that will inform how we weave stories and change minds in the world. It is my hope that all who write, whether vocationally or as part of some other job, will be able to look back on their work decades from now and be able to say, I am not ashamed of what I have written. If men's minds have been changed by it, they have been changed for the better.

Let's Go.

Today is the 64th anniversary of D-Day. Here's to all the courageous soldiers who took part in it, and the freedom it helped to create!

Happy birthday, Robert! :-)

Summer Reading Challenge 2008

My mom, over at her blog, has been hosting seasonal reading challenges for some time, and I figure I ought to get on board! Already, compiling books to read, I agree with her that intentional reading produces better results, even if the list is not fully finished. I fancy I will be adding more to this after my birthday, provided some of my presents are of the bookish kind, which I'm sure some will be. I may have to subtract one or two to make room. I cannot guarantee in what order I will actually read them, but here is the list:

--So Brave, Young, and Handsome (Leif Enger)
--The Language of God (Ron Julian, David Crabtree, Jack Crabtree)
--Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand)
--A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen)
--The Master of Ballantrae (Robert Louis Stevenson)
--Night (Elie Wiesel)
--The Double (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
--The Gambler (Dostoyevsky)
--Piccadilly Jim (P.G. Wodehouse)
--To the Last Man: A Novel of World War I (Jeff Shaara)
--The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Bronte)
--A Bridge Too Far (Cornelius Ryan)
--The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien)
--Cymbeline (William Shakespeare--all below by the same author)
--Othello
--Henry VIII
--King John
--Pericles, Prince of Tyre
--Timon of Athens
--Titus Andronicus
--Troilus and Cressida
--Two Gentlemen of Verona

If you weren't already planning to join said challenge, you should consider it. Reading is wonderful! :-)

Kicks and Giggles

Major universities are beginning to recognize me--and they're so eager about it, they're rushing to get their word in more than two weeks in advance. Very, very oddly, I just received a birthday card from the honors program at Texas A&M University. Mom can confirm that I'm not going insane. I suppose it's probably a ploy to make me feel special, but it's still rather amusing. :D