“Von Bek”, by Michael Moorcock

 

600 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565041929

Over the course of the mid-to-late 90s, White Wolf Publishing produced this massive omnibus collection of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” stories, a recurrent aspect in many of his tales. Von Bek was the second in this series featuring the character Captain Graf Ulrich von Bek and includes the tales The War Hound and the World’s Pain, A City in the Autumn Stars, The Dragon in the Sword and The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius. Ulrich von Bek (and his descendants) are an unusual family in Moorcock’s Multiverse, as they function both as an aspects of his Eternal Champion and as a companions to him. While the von Beks are referred to as “the oldest blood in Germany”, due to the interdimensional origins of the family they are, in fact, of royal Melnibonéan blood and, as such, are also prone to albinism. Oh, and besides all that, the von Beks are the hereditary Keepers of the Holy Grail, charged to keep it safe until such a time as Lucifer is reconciled with God. This can only happen when Lucifer and the von Beks are able to cure the “World’s Pain”; for this reason, their ancient family motto is “Do you the Devil’s work”.

The von Beks are some of Moorcock’s more typical antiheroes, although they were created several years before his ultimate antihero, Elric of Melniboné. I say “von Beks” for, again unusual for Moorcock, this aspect doesn’t necessarily manifest the same way twice: and so we have Graf Ulrich Von Bek (17^th Century), Manfred Von Bek (18^th Century), Ulrich Von Bek (20^th Century), another Ulric Von Bek (again from the 20^th Century, and an avatar of Elric), Count Ulrich Rudric Renark Otto von Bek-Krasny (aka Count Zenith the Albino, and another avatar of Elric), Renark Von Bek (the far future), The Rose Von Bek (related via marriage to a certain Edwin Begg) and several more, besides.

The War Hound and the World’s Pain is the first of the novels that feature one of the many “von Beks”, aspects of the Eternal Champion. Captain Graf Ulrich von Bek is a scholarly 17^th Century German aristocrat who, haunted by his participation in “Magdeburg’s Wedding” – the Sack of Magdeburg between May 20^th and 24^th, 1631 – has become an independent mercenary. Over the course of his travels, he comes upon a castle on a mountain in a forest evidently devoid of life, where he rests and recuperates. Eventually, von Bek meets the owner of the castle, who is none other than Lucifer, but a sympathetic Lucifer unfamiliar to most, as he is pained by a silent God whose purpose for the world can no longer be easily discerned. Moorcock’s Satan is a philosophical chap who, far from being the foe of God and his creation, in fact seeks to cure humanity of its suffering by retrieving the Holy Grail; he also assures von Bek that he is among the damned, but offers him a possibility of salvation: after Satan gives von Bek a tour of an admittedly grim but not too-bad Hell – and after Satan offers to redeem his lover, Sabrina – von Bek undertakes to find the Holy Grail and heal the world’s pain. This is perhaps my favorite of Moorcock’s works, merging as he does historic events and metaphysical themes, although his interpretation of Satan, I’m sure, will ruffle Christian feathers. It’s also deep; I mean, the themes and interpretations almost require an advanced degree in German philosophy to disentangle but, I promise, if you stick with it, the payoff is well worthwhile.

The City in the Autumn Stars is the second of the von Bek books, in which Ritter Manfred von Bek, fleeing Paris and the French Revolution, heads to the fictional Mirenburg, Germany. After various encounters with a multitude of characters – none of whom are very reasonable to this man from the Age of Reason – von Bek must admit at long last that the world does not change, especially after losing the enchanting Libussa, Duchess of Crete, and the mysterious Holy Grail. As with The War Hound and the World’s Pain, there are deep political and philosophical debates featuring the meaning and purpose of revolutions, the abuse of power in the name of “progress” and the human need to dominate the natural world. When asked about the results of the French Revolution, the late premier Zhou Enlai is reputed to have said “Too early to say”. While doubts have been thrown upon this quote, the point is the same: ironically, the further Moorcock transports us from our own times into The City in the Autumn Stars the closer he brings us to the present and compels us, with his usual symbolic finesse, to realize that the problems of the failed French Revolution are still with us.

The Dragon in the Sword is the third von Bek book, only this von Bek is the companion to the protagonist, rather than the subject of the book. Once again, the Eternal Champion is called forth to right interdimensional wrongs. John Dakar, who became Erekosë, is this time Prince Flamadin, who desires only to be reunited with Ermizhad, his long-lost love. Instead, he is pulled into the dimension of the Six Realms where he meets one Ulrich von Bek, who has likewise found himself in this strange otherworldly realm, having escaped from the Nazis on Earth. The Six Realms are an area where six different worlds inhabited by very different cultures and races come together through a number of planar gates. Flamadin soon learns of a plot by the forces of Chaos to conquer all the realms and knows that it is his mission as the Eternal Champion to stop that from happening. This is not because of some love for the forces of Law but rather, as is a common theme in Moorcock’s Eternal Champion works, because Balance is all important: too much Chaos breeds anarchy, while too much Law breeds stagnation.

Lastly is a short story, The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius, which takes place in an alternate 1940s Germany where WWII never happened and Adolf Hitler is an officer in the German police force under the command of an aged Otto Von Bismarck. Metatemporal detective Ulrich Von Bek must solve the mystery of a murder surrounding intelligent plants and a strange gardener in a tale that, frankly, while an interesting bit of alternative fiction, didn’t live up to the premise.

“The Crucible”, by Arthur Miller

95 pages, Dramatists Play Service, Inc., ISBN-13: 978-0822202554

Alright, alright, alright, settle down, you; I know that, officially, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play and not explicitly a book, but I’ve never seen the play but I have read it in the form of a book, so, y’know, it counts, okay? Okay. Alright, then. Like many of you, I’m sure, I read The Crucible in a high school English class and was exposed to its message about intolerance and hysteria, highlighting especially how both can lead to one being illogical and inhumane towards people Not Like Us. In the play, people lose their freedom and lives because they do not conform to norms and because people are swept away by fear and anxiety. Ostensibly, The Crucible dramatized and partially fictionalized the story of the Salem Witch Trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93, but in reality it was a critique of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) hearings then chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy, and served as a none-too-subtle criticism of the same.

Well then, what to make of this thing? There can be no doubt that Miller’s masterpiece is a powerful counterblast to what he saw as the draconian and dangerous Congressional hearings that sought to expose and root-out Communists from the Federal Government, something that Miller and all the other East Coast Intellectuals were certain didn’t exist. Never mind that McCarthy was right, that all sorts of pinkos had indeed infiltrated our institutions and were working to undermine their own country in service to the Red Beast of Moscow (looking especially at you, Alger Hiss). But just as bad is the distortion of fact that Miller undertook as stated by the man himself in the autobiographical, Time Bends, when his play first premiered in New York:

 

What I had not quite bargained for…was the hostility in the New York audience as the theme of the play was revealed; an invisible sheet of ice formed over their heads, thick enough to skate on. In the lobby at the end, people with whom I had some fairly close professional acquaintanceships passed me by as though I were invisible…Business inevitably began falling off in a month or so.

Perhaps your audience, Art, knew of the 20 to 40 million or so souls who had perished trying to give birth to the New Soviet Man, seized from their families, imprisoned without cause, tortured into making blatantly false confessions before being subjected to a show trial the outcome of which was preordained by the Powers That Be. How many of our Woke darlings learn any of this in their leftist PoliSci classes? If I were King of the World one of my many decrees would be that anyone would be free to read The Crucible only on condition that they also read Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon and/or anything by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Or maybe they should just sit through a screening of On the Waterfront, instead.

Because the play is a useful political tool to silence all critics and prevent what our founding fathers called eternal vigilance in protection of constitutional government. Miller not only slandered the Puritans, he went on to wrap himself in John Proctor’s saintly mantle, as well, and proceeded to make millions and transform himself into a martyr for The Cause. Miller and the Best & Brightest detested HUAC because it exposed their holier-than-thou bullshit to the world, and his hit piece is, for many, the last word on the subject. Mores the pity, for this play tells only that part of the story its author wants you to hear while covering up those icky bits that blows a hole in his narrative. In other words, The Crucible is nothing more than well-written lefty propaganda.

“Things Fall Apart”, by Chinua Achebe

 

209 pages, Penguin, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0385474542

I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe many moons ago as part of an anthropology class at Macomb Community College, only to find out later that it was the first book of a trilogy. Which I haven’t read. Anyway…Things Fall Apart was written back in 1958 and depicts precolonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the colonization by Europeans during the late 19^th Century. The protagonist is a man named Okonkwo who, by the lights of his society, is at the top of the heap as a warrior, wrestler, father and husband. He also unflinchingly exercises his prerogatives in brutal fashion, throwing his weight around, so to speak, with an unthinking single-mindedness. But into this insular and self-satisfied world comes the Europeans and their alien teachings, teachings that many in the tribe find hard – if not impossible – to resist. One who can is Okonkwo but, being one of only a few, finds that things fall apart and he has nowhere to turn.

Things Fall Apart tells two concurrent stories that overlap and counterbalance each other throughout the novel: the protagonist Okonkwo, who represents traditional African culture and its attempt to resist the White Man and his Teachings; and Okonkwo’s tribe, the Umuofia, as it undergoes a drastic change in all areas of life once European missionaries enter the fray. The stark divide in ideologies between Okonkwo and the Umuofia becomes the focal point of the story and leads to some very contentious moments in the book – and to its final tragedy. While focusing on one man and his people, Achebe uses this tale to discuss the wider story of European colonization and exploitation of Africa; in a sense, by making his story smaller, he is better able to show how this disruption brought change and displacement to countless millions of people all across the continent, to better humanize and detail just what the White Man wrought.

And it is Okonkwo who drives the tale forward, this well-developed, flawed and, therefore, fascinating character through whom the reader witnesses just what is going on, to him and to his people. He is a tragic hero whose actions are in the best interests of his family and tribe, though not always; he is no saint, and one bemoans many of the things he does, but this only serves to humanize him and make one root for him all the more. But, seeing what he is up against – the relentless march of European civilization and Progress, as understood by them – it is hard to fault too many of his actions and not to sympathize with much of what he does. The brilliance of Things Fall Apart is how objective it manages to be while also establishing an intimate feel throughout; Achebe was able to shine a light on the culture of the missionaries as well as the Umuofia and point out their strengths and weaknesses while engaging the readers in a very personal tale of one tribesman’s struggle to come to terms with this newly imposed way of life.

“Gods, Graves & Scholars: A Story of Archaeology”, by C.W. Ceram

 

576 pages, Vintage, ISBN-13: 978-0394743196

Hey, ya ever hear of a guy named Kurt Wilhelm Marek? No? Can’t say as I blame you, considering he was a propagandist for the Third Reich who wrote such illuminating and groundbreaking pieces like Wir hielten Narvik, Rote Spiegel überall am Feind and the ever-popular Von den Kanonieren des Reichsmarschalls. Riveting stuff, I’m sure. You may, however, have heard of someone named C.W. Ceram (“Ceram” being “Marek” spelled backwards with a latinized “C” in place of the Germanic “K”) who wrote the brilliant Gods, Graves & Scholars: A Story of Archaeology, a book – hell, THE book – that introduced the general reading public to the origin and development of archaeology. Yours truly, included.

And it remains in print today. GG&S tries to be all-inclusive in that it covers Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Greek archaeology, along with Mexican, Central American and South American finds while also giving thumbnail sketches of pioneering archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann, Jean-François Champollion, Paul-Émile Botta and Howard Carter, along with many others. Although originally published in 1949 and in spite of the vast accumulation of information in the decades since (particularly in the Americas), GG&S remains an excellent starting point for anyone with even the remotest interest in archaeology, giving as it does a concise but inclusive account of most of the ancient cultures known today.

Being a popular history, many details of cultures and peoples are rather glossed over; however, this in no way detracts from the quality of the writing (or the translation, for that matter) or the depth of the research involved. This book is an appetizer for the intellectual gourmand, a wetting of the appetite that hopefully induces the reader to gorge themselves on the history of this subject. There are, no doubt, other, more detailed and all-encompassing books have come out in the 70+ years since GG&S was first published – especially those that are dedicated specifically to one culture or another – but you could do worse than by starting with GG&S and expanding your search henceforth to include other works.

Between Gods, Graves & Scholars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, I have no doubt that many a young man (and young woman, I suppose) leapt at the chance to become an archaeologist and to explore the world and uncover artifacts and fight Nazis…and while they may have been disappointed at the lack of action and gunplay, I trust they found fulfillment in exploration and discovery.

“The Remains of the Day”, by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

245 pages, Vintage Books, ISBN13: 978-0679731726

It’s rare that a movie is better than the book it was based upon; often, the book is always better, or nearly so. But sometimes, we have a case in which a book and its movie adaptation are equal in terms of merit and quality, and so we have it here with The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. “The Remains of the Day” is one of my favorite all-time movies ever; I have literally watched it maybe a hundred times and it still affects me in ways that few movies have. And so when I saw the novel that the movie was based on at 2^nd & Charles I snatched it up, fully expecting that the movie would suffer in my eyes. But no: both book and movie are brilliant character studies that make the era they are placed in come alive, and I am delighted to say that one may read, or view, either adaptation and still come away moved…and not a little depressed.

The Remains of the Day is told entirely in the first person by Stevens, an English butler who has spent almost the whole of his career (indeed, the whole of his life) in service to Lord Darlington of Darlington Hall. In July 1956, Stevens decides to take a six-day road trip to the West Country of England – his first-ever vacation – at the behest of Mr. Farraday, an American gentleman and the new owner of Darlington Hall and, hence, Stevens’ new employer. While Stevens respects and gets on with Mr. Farraday, he fails to interact well with him on a social level (Stevens has several introspective and self-revelatory speculations as to the use of “Banter” and his inability to master the concept). And so Stevens embarks on his journey west to relax and rusticate, but we soon learn that there is an ulterior motive to this trip.

Stevens determines to visit Miss Kenton (or rather, Mrs. Benn), the former housekeeper of Darlington Hall who left twenty years earlier to get married. After receiving a letter from Mrs. Benn (hereafter Miss Kenton, as Stevens, perhaps absentmindedly, continues to call her), he  determines that as her marriage appears to be failing that she might like to return to her post as housekeeper of Darlington Hall. Since the end of The War, large manor houses have had difficulty staffing their many open positions; indeed, many of these manor houses cannot stay in the hands of the families that have occupied them for generations, seeing how death duties often makes it impossible to do so. That there also appears to be a more personal reason for wanting Miss Kenton back at the house, Stevens never says (although the movie hints at this).

The narrative is thus a road trip by Stevens set in 1956 with numerous recollections of his time serving Lord Darlington before and during The War; along the way, Stevens briefly comes into contact with several other characters, each of whom mirrors Stevens and show the reader different facets of his character (two in particular, Dr. Carlisle and Harry Smith, highlight themes in the book). He also recounts stories of his contemporaries, especially fellow butlers in other great houses who served other great men (ahem) with whom he struck up friendships. During these reminisces, Stevens also begins an inner debate about the definition of “Dignity” and how one cannot be a good butler, much less a great one, without it, again unknowingly giving the reader an insight into this most introspective yet utterly clueless man.

But Stevens’ most notable relationship by far is his long-term working relationship with Miss Kenton, for whom he appears to harbor repressed and never talked about romantic feelings (while this is much clearer in the movie, it is less so in the book). I have to say that one cannot be certain just when Miss Kenton fell for Stevens or vise-versa, or even why. Certainly, the two have frequent disagreements over various household affairs when they work together, but the disagreements are childish in nature and mainly serve to illustrate the fact that the two care for each other on some level. I guess. For I think that Miss Kenton is just as repressed as Stevens and as unable to tell him what she feels, the same as Stevens for Miss Kenton. And so they are both equally to blame for their wasted lives and pointless lovelessness.

At the end of the novel, Miss Kenton – Mrs. Benn – admits that her life may have turned out better if she had married Stevens; after hearing these words, Stevens is extremely upset, although he cannot quite figure out why that is so. He does not, however, tell Miss Kenton how he feels, and so finds himself right back in emotional square one. Oh, there is one brief appearance at the pier when Stevens encounters another butler, since retired, and confesses in a somewhat roundabout way that his was a wasted life in service to man he thought was of superior intellectual and moral character who turned to be anything but, while his own wants and desires were quashed. But Stevens soon recovers and returns to Darlington Hall, his only new resolve being to perfect the art of bantering to please his new employer.

This leads us to another theme of the novel, the all-important class-system of the UK. We learn through Stevens’ interactions with other characters that Lord Darlington was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, due mostly to his mistaken impression of their agenda prior to The War rather than to their anti-Semitic propaganda or other beliefs, going so far as to arrange and host dinner parties between the German and British heads of state to help both sides come to a peaceful understanding. Throughout the book Stevens steadfastly maintains that Lord Darlington was a perfect gentleman and that it is a shame his reputation has been soiled simply because he misunderstood the Nazis’ true aims; but upon learning how this gentleman of the highest order was fooled so easily shatters Stevens’ faith in the class system and his, and Darlington’s, place in it.

So then, what to make of The Remains of the Day? Salman Rushdie described the book as “a story both beautiful and cruel” as we witness “a man destroyed by the ideas upon which he has built his life”. For while Lord Darlington – and, indeed, all of the upper class – was able to choose the path his life took, Stevens – and, indeed, all of the lower classes – cannot say the same: “You see, I trusted…I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really, one has to ask oneself, what dignity is there in that? [returning to one of the themes of the book]”. It is a story primarily about regret: throughout his life, Stevens puts his absolute trust and devotion in a man who makes drastic mistakes while failing to pursue the one woman with whom he could have had a fulfilling and loving relationship. His prim mask of formality – his “Dignity” – cuts him off from intimacy, companionship and understanding. I say, Stevens, bit of a wasted life, wot?

“The Hobbit”, by J. R. R. Tolkien

 

256 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN-13: 978-0395071229

The first time I ever heard of hobbits, Tolkien, Middle Earth and the lot was through the 1977 Rankin/Bass interpretation…and brother, was I hooked. While it would take several more years before I got into Dungeons & Dragons, it was from this time that I became aware of fantasy fiction, magic, dragons, wizards, warriors, elves and so forth. So, when in grade school I was perusing the library and came across The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien – imagine, turning a cartoon into a book! – I pitched right in and read it cover-to-cover in a day or two (I know, the book came first, but I didn’t know that at the time). For those of you who have lived under a rock for the last several decades, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (to give the complete title) is a fantasy children’s story by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, first published in – get this – 1937, where it became much-beloved by both pointy-heads (it won the Carnegie Medal and a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction) and common-folk (it has been a consistent bestseller since publication). A rare feat, indeed.

The tale told by Tolkien as to how The Hobbit came to be was related in a letter he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955 in which, one day while marking School Certificate papers early in the 1930s, he found a blank page and, suddenly inspired, wrote the immortal words: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”.  By late 1932, Tolkien had finished the story and lent it to several friends (including C. S. Lewis) and a student of Tolkien’s named Elaine Griffiths. This last bit is important for, in 1936, Griffiths was visited in Oxford by Susan Dagnall, a staff member of the publisher George Allen & Unwin, whence she either lent Dagnall the book or suggested she borrow it from Tolkien. Whatever. What’s important is that Dagnall was so impressed by The Hobbit that she showed it to Stanley Unwin. He then asked his 10-year-old son Rayner to review it and he, to his everlasting glory, gave the book glowing raves, which was all that Allen & Unwin needed to publish and transform this Oxford Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and fellow at Pembroke College into a modern-day skald.

So, what is it about The Hobbit that makes it so transcendent and popular? Why is it liked by so many people of different generations, social strata, nationalities and all that? There are any number of reasons, but perhaps the simplest and, therefore, best reason is that it is a well-written book: characters are developed, their motivations are clear, the tale moves along at a brisk pace (important when reading to children), the main character is challenged and, by being so, grows and develops, there is action and adventure, wonderful places and sweeping vistas, fantastic creatures and horrible monsters, heroic feats and terrible consequences – in short (heh), The Hobbit is Old School Storytelling at its best, something we get precious little of anymore, especially in children’s fiction. And that’s another important point: this book was meant for children, filled with timeless themes that transcend so much: courage, loyalty, duty, sticktoitiveness – its all there, especially the bit wherein Bilbo Baggins is drawn out of his comfortable (not to say, stagnant) life and made to go adventuring and, in so doing, becomes a better hobbit for it.

It hooked me when I was child and has stayed with me ever since, which is what great literature is supposed to do. Yeah, I said it: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is great literature, for it inspires as it entertains and enlightens as it informs generations of children – and adults – in years past, in the present and for years to come.