Theatres of Glass: a book review

Theatres of Glass by Rebecca Stott (2003)

I recently read Theatres of Glass: The Woman who Brought the Sea to the City by Rebecca Stott. The book tells the story of Anna Thynne, wife of the Reverend Lord John Thynne, who was Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey from 1831 to 1881.

Anna with her daughters Selina and Emily

Beginning in 1846, when she took her children on a holiday to Devonshire, Anna Thynne developed the marine aquarium (realising that constant aeration of the water was required) and studied stony corals such as Caryophyllia smithii, publishing an article with the deeply religious zoologist Philip Gosse.

The Devonshire Cup Coral, Caryophyllia smithii

Stott quotes Tennyson’s The Princess as an indication of the Victorian mania for collection:

“And me that morning Walter showed the house,
Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,
Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time;
And on the tables every clime and age
Jumbled together; celts and calumets,
Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs
From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls,
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,
His own forefathers’ arms and armour hung.”

Indeed, as Stott explains, Anna Thynne’s work (together with the book The Aquarium: an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea by Gosse) helped extend that mania to aquaria as well. My understanding of the chronology is this:

1806: Anna born (April 1)
1824: Anna marries Lord John Thynne (age 17, almost 18)
1841: Ward experiments with freshwater aquaria
1846: Anna begins her marine aquarium (age 40)
1849: Anna moves to Tenby in Pembrokeshire
1850: Anna conducts detailed investigations of the “Madrepores” in her aquarium
1850: Warrington experiments with freshwater aquaria
1852: Anna abandons her aquarium and moves to Hawnes Park, Bedfordshire
1852: Warrington experiments with marine aquaria; the London Zoo establishes an aquarium
1854: Gosse publishes The Aquarium
1856: Second edition of The Aquarium
1859: Anna (age 53) and Gosse publish “On the increase of Madrepores” in The Annals and Magazine of Natural History
1866: Anna dies (age 60)

An illustration from Gosse’s book, which appears on the dust cover of Stott’s

Overall, a very enjoyable book, about a forgotten heroine of science. I didn’t quite feel I’d gotten inside Anna’s head, but that is probably because the limited range of source material often forces Stott to speculate. Anna’s role is weakened a little by the fact that Gosse was unaware of her when he wrote his book in 1854, although he lists her as one of three pioneers in the second edition (and quotes the sentence “The individual to whom is due the merit of having introduced marine vivaria into London is Mrs. Thynne,” which justifies the carefully chosen subtitle of Stott’s book).

Also, I was perhaps subconsciously expecting some of the flavour of Barchester Towers, in a book about the wife of a Sub-Dean. No doubt that is the wrong way to think about Anna Thynne, but Stott does not give a strong alternative. I can’t help wish that more source material existed. I would have liked some colour plates in the book too.

Theatres of Glass by Rebecca Stott: 3½ stars

Standing like a stone wall

150 years ago on May 10, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died of pneumonia, after being wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Or did he? The cause of Jackson’s death has been much debated, most recently at the 20^th Historical Clinicopathological Conference. However, it seems likely that the attending doctor was right, and pneumonia was the immediate cause of death. Modern medical care wold have saved the famous Confederate general.

“Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees,” Jackson said as he died.

“Over the river,” a voice meekly said,
Whose clarion tones had thousands obeyed,
As in ranks upon ranks they grandly rushed on,
To battle for liberty, country, and home!

“Over the river,” immortality’s plains,
In verdure eternal where peace ever reigns,
Rejoice with their beauty his vision of faith,
As his spirit approaches the river of death!

“Over the river, ‘neath the shade of the trees,”
Advancing to meet him bright angels he sees,
They beckon him over to rest in the shade,
And dwell in the mansions the Saviour hath made.

“Over the river, ‘neath the shade of the trees,”
Whose fruit of twelve manners his taste shall e’er please;
Beneath whose soft foliage his spirit may rest,
“Over the river,” in the home of the blest.

“Over the river, ‘neath the shade of the trees,”
Freed from the earth’s sorrows he’ll rest at his ease;
Life’s conflict is over, its battle is won,
And his brow will be wreathed with the victor’s bright crown.

“Over the river,” now a Heavenly guest!
“‘Neath the shade of the trees,” forever at rest!
In that glorious land, enraptured he’ll sing,
The praises of Him who of Kings is the King! – by “James,” in The Southern Poems of the War, 1867

The Wreck of the Old 97

The Wreck of the Old 97 is a classic of country music. I grew up with the version by The Seekers below. The lyrics for that version are the ones often sung, but are somewhat corrupt. The event, as it actually took place, is described in Larry G. Aaron’s excellent 2010 book The Wreck of the Old 97, and this tragedy of steam technology is better served by the lyrics below:

Well they gave him his orders at Monroe, Virginia
Sayin’ Steve you’re way behind time
This is not 38, it’s old 97
You must put her into Spencer on time

Then he turned around and said to his black greasy fireman
Shovel on a little more coal
And when we cross that White Oak Mountain
Watch old 97 roll

The song tells the story of a Southern Railway mail train, running from Washington, D.C. to Atlanta, Georgia. The annual mail contract was worth about $3,500,000 in today’s money, but there were stiff penalties for each minute the train was late. On Sunday 27 September 1903, engineer Joseph A. (“Steve”) Broady took over a train (number 97) at Monroe with an almost new ten-wheeler locomotive (number 1102). But it was a train running an hour late, and Broady was under pressure to make up time by exceeding the already fast normal running speed.

But it’s a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville
And from Lima it’s on a three mile grade
It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes
See what a jump he made

Broady roared through several small stations without slowing. Mail clerks threw mail bags from the train, but the train was travelling too fast to pick up southbound mail from the trackside suspension pouches. At the small freight depot of Lima (just on the Danville city limits as at 2010), the train was en route to what was essentially a death trap. Three miles of track, with an average downhill grade of about 1.6%, led to a sharp turn over the Stillhouse Trestle bridge (located here). It is not known whether Broady’s brakes failed, but he did not or could not apply them during the downhill run. Just before the turn, witnesses saw sparks as he threw the engine into reverse, in a desperate attempt to lose momentum.

He was goin’ down the grade makin’ 90 miles an hour
When his whistle broke into a scream
He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle
A-scalded to death by the steam

Ninety miles an hour is perhaps an exaggeration – 60 is more consistent with witness reports. The scream, however, is attested to by Danville reporter Pat Fox: “The whistle... gave a series of blasts on the approach to Lima and finally set up a constant broken wailing down the three-mile grade to the Dan Valley. It was the death cry of a runaway locomotive and it chilled the hearts of all who heard it.”

In his book on the wreck, Aaron writes: “Regardless, what we do know is that once the speeding train left the trestle and sailed into space, the laws of physics regarding momentum and centrifugal force came into play. Ultimately, gravity put it on the ground. Sunday, September 27, 1903, was a big day for Isaac Newton’s laws of motion but a bad day for Old 97 and its crew.”

The train was travelling at a speed of at least 60 miles an hour (27 metres per second). The safe speed around the corner was officially 15 – at most 25. The locomotive and tender weighed 274,360 pounds (124,450 kg), plus the four (mostly wooden) cars. That’s over 45 MJ of kinetic energy (by my calculation) and 3.3 Meganewton-seconds of momentum which Broady could not easily shed. The radius of the curve at Danville was (by my estimate) around 150 metres, giving a centrifugal acceleration of about 0.5 g – enough to derail the train.

Then the telegram come to Washington station
And this is how it read
Oh that brave engineer that run old 97
He’s a layin’ in old Danville dead

So now all you ladies you better take a warnin’
From this time on and learn
Never speak harsh words to your true lovin’ husband
He may leave you and never return

Both the song and the above photograph (taken the day after the crash) omit one bizarre detail: hundreds of bright yellow birds flying over the wreckage, chirping merrily. The train had been carrying several crates of canaries, intended for use as living poison-gas detectors in the Southern coal mines. They escaped that fate, at least.

Books in The Lord of the Rings

A recent conversation turned to the topic of reading within The Lord of the Rings. I can see three categories of literature mentioned in this great three-part novel.

Books as Chronicle

A modern individualist thinks of diaries here, but chronicles are more properly part of a community, and are valued by the community as a record of its shared past. The Lord of the Rings itself purports to be based on Bilbo’s Hobbit-chronicle, but dwarves also value communal records highly, and Balin wrote in his chronicle right up to the end:

“There was a big book with plain red leather covers; its tall pages were now almost filled. At the beginning there were many leaves covered with Bilbo’s thin wandering hand; but most of it was written in Frodo’s firm flowing script. It was divided into chapters but Chapter 80 was unfinished, and after that were some blank leaves. The title page had many titles on it, crossed out one after another, so: My Diary. My Unexpected Journey. There and Back Again. And What Happened After. Adventures of Five Hobbits. The Tale of the Great Ring, compiled by Bilbo Baggins from his own observations and the accounts of his friends. What we did in the War of the Ring. Here Bilbo’s hand ended and Frodo had written:

THE DOWNFALL OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS AND THE RETURN OF THE KING
(as seen by the Little People; being the memoirs of Bilbo and Frodo of the Shire, supplemented by the accounts of their friends and the learning of the Wise.)
Together with extracts from Books of Lore translated by Bilbo in Rivendell.” – The Return of the King

“‘Here is the last page of all.’ He paused and sighed. ‘It is grim reading,’ he said. ‘I fear their end was cruel. Listen! We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and second hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there. Then there are four lines smeared so that I can only read went 5 days ago. The last lines run the pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Oin. We cannot get out. The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep. I wonder what that means. The last thing written is in a trailing scrawl of elf-letters: they are coming. There is nothing more. ... Now, I fear, we must say farewell to Balin son of Fundin. Here he must lie in the halls of his fathers. We will take this book, the Book of Mazarbul [Records], and look at it more closely later. You had better keep it, Gimli, and take it back to Dáin, if you get a chance.” – The Fellowship of the Ring

Books as Lore

This category includes books of practical and theoretical knowledge: objective history, science, herb-lore, and the like. Men and elves and even Istari use such books, though not as often as they should, in a time of war and decayed civilisation. This category of books is still with us:

“So said Denethor. And yet there lie in his hoards many records that few even of the lore-masters now can read, for their scripts and tongues have become dark to later men.” – The Fellowship of the Ring

“Aragorn and Gandalf walked together or sat speaking of their road and the perils they would meet; and they pondered the storied and figured maps and books of lore that were in the house of Elrond.” – The Fellowship of the Ring

“We in the house of Denethor know much ancient lore by long tradition, and there are moreover in our treasuries many things preserved: books and tablets writ on withered parchments, yea, and on stone, and on leaves of silver and of gold, in divers characters. Some none can now read; and for the rest, few ever unlock them. I can read a little in them, for I have had teaching. It was these records that brought the Grey Pilgrim to us.” – Faramir in The Two Towers

Books as Fun

Hobbits read books for fun. That is not an ignoble reason for reading, and I think the best readers read partly for that reason. Among Bilbo Baggins’ parting gifts we find the following labelled item:

“For the collection of HUGO BRACEGIRDLE, from a contributor; on an (empty) book-case. Hugo was a great borrower of books, and worse than usual at returning them.” – The Fellowship of the Ring

“The genealogical trees at the end of the Red Book of Westmarch are a small book in themselves, and all but Hobbits would find them exceedingly dull. Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate: they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.” – The Fellowship of the Ring

“Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!’ And they’ll say: ‘Yes, that’s one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he, dad?’ ‘Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.’” – The Two Towers

Why study mathematics?

Like John Allen Paulos, I am often asked why mathematics is worth studying. In his book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (Basic Books, 1995), Paulos gives an excellent answer:

“As a mathematician, I’m often challenged to come up with compelling reasons to study mathematics. If the questioner is serious, I reply that there are three reasons or, more accurately, three broad classes of reasons to study mathematics. Only the first and most basic class is practical. It pertains to job skills and the needs of science and technology. The second concerns the understandings that are essential to an informed and effective citizenry. The last class of reasons involves considerations of curiosity, beauty, playfulness, perhaps even transcendence and wisdom.”

The second and third answers are reflected in the words inscribed on the door of Plato’s Academy: “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter” (Ἀγεωμέτρητος μηδεὶς εἰσίτω):

The first answer relates to the critical importance of mathematics in several fields of human endeavour, including science, engineering, medicine, and finance. For example:

A stressed ribbon bridge is strong if its shape is that of the mathematical curve called a catenary.

The spread of an infectious disease can be predicted by a set of three differential equations, relating three variables: S, I, and R (left). Real-world disease outbreaks show a similar pattern (right).

Many people list this as the only reason for studying mathematics, but it only applies to a minority of students – those keeping open the option of entering those fields. The second answer relates to the importance of mathematics in decision-making by ordinary citizens, and this applies to everybody. Some of those decisions by citizens require quantitative thinking. For example, which groceries are the best value for money? If two studies on 20 people report that a certain vegetable causes cancer, and one study on 1,000 people report that it doesn’t, is the vegetable safe? More subtly, training in mathematics helps in thinking clearly even about non-quantitative issues. Plato seemed to think that mathematics was essential training, and I would agree. Bertrand Russell put it this way: “One of the chief ends served by mathematics, when rightly taught, is to awaken the learner's belief in reason, his confidence in the truth of what has been demonstrated, and in the value of demonstration.”

What is the best value for money – the melons at $5 each, the grapes at $4 per kg, or the blueberries at $3 per punnet?

This classic book has applications to more than mathematics.

The third answer relates to a famous remark of Debussy – “La musique est une mathématique mystérieuse dont les éléments participent de l’infini” (“Music is a mysterious mathematics whose elements partake of the Infinite”). It works the other way around too. Mathematics is a mysterious and beautiful music that puts one in touch with the Infinite. As Plato would have said, mathematics reminds us that more things exist than just the finite and physical. This particularly applies to those parts of mathematics which relate to infinity, such as the number π, or the Mandelbrot set:

π = 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273 7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132 0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235 4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859 5024459455 3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881 7101000313 7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303 5982534904 2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778 1857780532 1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989 ...

Some of the (infinitely many) digits of π.

The Mandelbrot set contains an infinite amount of detail (click for zoom animation).

Rudy Rucker’s little book The Fourth Dimension and How to Get There is also a great mind-stretcher. And, of course, having one’s mind stretched like that is a lot of fun.

Evening in the Palace of Reason: a book review

Evening in the Palace of Reason by James Gaines

I recently read a borrowed copy of Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James Gaines. This fantastic book is a dual biography of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick the Great, focussing on the meeting which led to Bach writing his Musical Offering. This meeting also opens my favourite mathematical book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

The brilliant Johann Sebastian Bach and the unpleasant Frederick the Great

Gaines links Bach to supposedly archaic and irrational Pythagorean and Platonic views of music, and Frederick to the modern ideas of the Enlightenment. It is ironic, however, that Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid makes Bach the representative of an even more modern kind of reason.

Associated with the Enlightenment shift were differences in musical taste between Bach and Frederick. To quote Dorothy Sayers in Gaudy Night, “Anybody can have the harmony, if they will leave us the counterpoint.”

Frederick did not like Bach, and Gaines follows Arnold Schoenberg in suggesting that the musical theme Frederick provided to Bach was a trap, intended to render a fugue virtually impossible.

The royal theme

Bach’s magnificent response to Frederick’s challenge reveals the composer’s genius. But not only that – Michael Marissen, in his “The theological character of J. S. Bach’s Musical Offering” (in Bach Studies, 1995, Daniel R. Melamed, ed., Cambridge University Press, pp. 85–106) points out that the Musical Offering is a rather pointed sermon in musical form, with references to the Ten Commandments and to, for example, Matthew 7:7.

The “endlessly rising canon” from the Musical Offering. There seems to be a twist to the inscription “As the notes ascend, so may the glory of the king.”

Gaines presents the stories of Bach and Frederick as a contrast between Faith and Reason. But, in fact, there is more Reason in Bach than in Frederick. The true contrast is between faith and unbelief. Both Bach and Frederick had difficult lives, but Bach’s faith enabled him to come through adversity with singing, and always with at least the promise of joy.

“Gloria in excelsis ... et in terra pax,” from J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

I loved this book. Much of it is beautifully written – “Every piano concerto in the history of Western music has its antecedent in the Fifth Brandenburg concerto, where the lowliest member of the orchestra was turned loose to become Liszt.” There is also a wonderful irony in reading about largely forgotten musicians of his time criticising Bach. Bach, of all people! Gaines mentions the obsession Frederick’s father had with giants, but there is only one true giant in this book. Nevertheless, it isn’t Bach himself who is great, for music ultimately comes from God. Knowing that was one of the things that made Bach who he was. “Bach’s music makes no argument that the world is more than a ticking clock, yet leaves no doubt of it,” Gaines writes.

Thanks for the loan, S and K!

Evening in the Palace of Reason by James Gaines: 4 stars

Planets in Peril: a brief book review

Planets in Peril by David C. Downing

I recently borrowed and read Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy by David C. Downing. I enjoyed this much more than Planet Narnia, and Downing’s book shed some interesting light on the Space Trilogy.

I had not spotted the links between That Hideous Strength and the Inferno, for example, and was ignorant of the links between Perelandra and The Faerie Queene. I’m very glad I read Downing’s book, although I feel I should go and re-read the Space Trilogy now.

Planets in Peril by David C. Downing: 3½ stars

The Virtues in Narnia

In my review of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, I suggested that a better case could be made for a match to the seven virtues. Here, with help from a bibliophile, is that correspondence:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)	Love	“...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.” “And down they both knelt in the wet grass and kissed his cold face and stroked his beautiful fur – what was left of it – and cried till they could cry no more.”
Prince Caspian (1951)	Faith	“We don't forget. I believe in the High King Peter and the rest that reigned at Cair Paravel, as firmly as I believe in Aslan himself.” “Sometimes I did wonder if there really was such a person as Aslan: but then sometimes I wondered if there were really people like you. Yet there you are.” “I saw you all right. They wouldn't believe me.”
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)	Hope	“But Reepicheep here has an even higher hope... I expect to find Aslan’s own country. It is always from the east, across the sea, that the great Lion comes to us.” “The others all voted for going on in the hope of finding land.”
The Silver Chair (1953)	Prudence	“We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”
The Horse and His Boy (1954)	Fortitude	“Shasta’s heart gave a great jump and he had to bite his tongue to keep himself from screaming.” “And now at last, brave girl though she was, her heart quailed. Supposing the others weren’t there! Supposing the ghouls were! But she stuck out her chin (and a little bit of her tongue too) and went straight towards them.”
The Magician’s Nephew (1955)	Temperance	“... he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants.” “Well, you know how it feels if you begin hoping for something that you want desperately badly...” “She’d tell me not to do it – quick as anything – if she was here.”
The Last Battle (1956)	Justice	“‘Justice, Lord King!’ she cried. ‘Come to our aid. Protect your people. They are felling us in Lantern Waste. Forty great trunks of my brothers and sisters are already on the ground.’” “... Eustace began to feel that perhaps, after all, everything might be going to come right.”

Notice that this scheme fits with what Lewis says: “The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn’t think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong.” A sole book would be about love, and a trilogy would be about love, faith, and hope.

I’m not saying that this scheme is necessarily right, but I think that if Lewis had a key to the Narnia books, it was more likely to be this than a planetary scheme.

Christ is Risen!

“Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” – Luke 24

Recent reading (January to March)

Over the past few months, I finished the following books, among others. Links go to my reviews. Books marked with ♥ (fiction) or ♦ (non-fiction) were particularly good:

• Planet Narnia by Michael Ward
• The Bards of Bone Plain by Patricia A. McKillip ♥
• Branches by Philip Ball ♦
• A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians by Charles Hodge ♦

Older reviews (fiction, 2013):

• Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope ♥

Older reviews (fiction, 2012):

• The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder ♥
• 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson ♥
• Dandelion Fire by N.D. Wilson ♥
• The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan ♥
• The Plague by Albert Camus ♥
• Inverted World by Christopher Priest
• Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers ♥
• The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis ♥
• Four Faultless Felons by G. K. Chesterton

Older reviews (fiction, 2010–2011):

• The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino ♥
• The Tower at Stony Wood by Patricia A. McKillip ♥
• Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip ♥
• The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer
• Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
• At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft ♥
• The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry ♥
• Ukridge by P.G. Wodehouse
• Sovereign by C.J. Sansom
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor ♥
• Impossible Things by Connie Willis
• Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis ♥

Older reviews (non-fiction, 2013):

• Ascent to Love by Peter Leithart

Older reviews (non-fiction, 2012):

• Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by David Gerrold ♦
• The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman
• The Persian Expedition by Xenophon ♦
• Four Views on the Apostle Paul by Michael Bird and others
• The Naming of Names by Anna Pavord ♦
• The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection by Robert Farrar Capon ♦
• Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna
• The Chemistry of the Blood by M. R. De Haan
• Dry Storeroom No. 1 by Richard Fortey
• Shapes by Philip Ball ♦
• Singing with the Angels by Robert E. Coleman ♦
• Literature and Theology by Ralph C. Wood
• Finding God Beyond Harvard by Kelly Monroe Kullberg ♦

Older reviews (non-fiction, 2011):

• Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene H. Peterson
• Defending Constantine by Peter J. Leithart ♦
• Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl by N. D. Wilson
• Only A Theory by Kenneth R. Miller
• The Edge of Evolution by Michael J. Behe
• Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir by Carolyn Weber ♦
• Citrus: A History by Pierre Laszlo
• Field Notes on Science & Nature by Michael R. Canfield ♦
• C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy by Sanford Schwartz ♦
• Think by John Piper
• Natural Experiments of History by Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson
• Social Understanding by Jürgen and Christina Klüver
• The Secret Life of Birds by Colin Tudge
• Galileo by Mitch Stokes
• Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by H.R. Rookmaaker
• Terra – Tales of the Earth: Four Events That Changed the World by Richard Hamblyn ♦
• Philosophy, Science and the Sovereignty of God by Vern S. Poythress

A (partial) favourite-book list is here.

Planet Narnia: a book review

Planet Narnia by Michael Ward

I finally got around to reading Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Michael Ward. Back in 2008 this book promised new insights into the Chronicles of Narnia, by linking the seven books to the seven (medieval) planets.

I was, to put it mildly, underwhelmed. The book seems to simply assume the hypothesis, without actually proving it. I was reminded of Plato’s famous attempt to link the elements to the five Platonic solids:

Some quick word frequency checks do little to support Ward’s hypothesis. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is allegedly “Jovial,” but the word “king” occurs far more often (46–93 times) in all books but The Magician’s Nephew than in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (where a count using Amazon finds the word occurring only 21 times). Even the expression “By Jove” occurs only the median number of times in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Similarly, the supposedly “Martial” Prince Caspian does not dominate in words like “tree,” “knight,” or “battle;” and the supposedly “Solar” The Voyage of the Dawn Treader does not dominate in words like “light.” Ward indeed acknowledges such discrepancies (p. 232), but claims that the fault lies with Lewis, for not properly following the scheme.

Apparently, Lewis’s stepson Douglas Gresham commented “I like Michael enormously, but I think his book is nonsense.” I tend to agree. A better case could be made for linking the seven books to the seven virtues, but even that correspondence would be a little forced.

Planet Narnia by Michael Ward: 2 stars

Palm Sunday, 2013

Fresco by Pietro Lorenzetti (1320)

“The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’” — Matthew 21:6–9, ESV.

“Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang;
Through pillared court and temple the lovely anthem rang.
To Jesus, who had blessed them close folded to His breast,
The children sang their praises, the simplest and the best.

From Olivet they followed mid an exultant crowd,
The victor palm branch waving, and chanting clear and loud.
The Lord of men and angels rode on in lowly state,
Nor scorned that little children should on His bidding wait.

‘Hosanna in the highest!’ that ancient song we sing,
For Christ is our Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven our King.
O may we ever praise Him with heart and life and voice,
And in His blissful presence eternally rejoice!” – Jeanette Threlfall, 1873