Leda and the New Testament?: new in bookstores

The Virgin Mother's been called some unusual things: I've heard her likened to the Egyptian goddess Isis. I've read comparisons of her to the Greek maiden Leda (both, the comparison goes, conceived after a divine encounter). I suppose I expected something just as startling or subversive in a new short book by Colm Toibin, "The Testament of Mary," published by Scribner this month.

In a way, this is just what happened - although not in the way that I expected.

Toibin gives us a portrait of the mother of Jesus in her heartbroken old age: living in Ephesus, visited (and harassed) by the Gospel writers who want her to corroborate the story of Jesus that they're writing. One of them scowls at her "when the story I tell him does not stretch to whatever limits he has ordained."

What does she think of her son's disciples?

They're nothing but "a group of misfits, who were only children like himself, or men without fathers, or men who could not look a woman in the eye."

This book started as a dramatic monologue performed before Dublin audiences, and all I could think was: Well, I wonder what people in the world's most Catholic nation think of this!

After all, Mary's not the figure of the Pieta, holding the body of her son after he is taken off the cross: She flees, terrified for her life.  There are many more provocative revelations -- but I won't spoil them -- all rendered in Toibin's characteristically beautiful, lyrical prose.

In the end, Toibin gives us a Mary who isn't Isis, or Leda. She's not a figure surrounded by stained-glass or stretching across the ceiling of countless church domes. Toibin's testament presents us with someone far more powerful and easier to understand: A mother. Toibin's Mary is human, all too human.

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Relic, relique, reliquus: Part 2

Besides having a great name, Ransom Riggs is a good fellow (we once sat on a panel together at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books) who's in the habit of making relics. Sort of.

As I was thinking about Umberto Eco and my personal artifacts in a previous post, Riggs came to mind. The plot of his novel "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" was influenced by all the unusual black-and-white vintage photographs scattered throughout the book. The pics don't belong to his family history, they're not self-generated: No, he acquired them at flea markets. They were context-less when he found them: no captions, nothing to explain them.

That left him free to invent his own stories (reminds me a little of what Chris Van Allsburg does in his children's book "The Chronicles of Harris Burdick"). Riggs also does the same in a new book, "Talking Pictures: Images and Messages Rescued from the Past" (It Books).

I wish I had the energy to rove like him through flea markets for interesting old spars of knowledge, dim wares of price (E.P.). That doesn't mean I'm without my own relics, though. A few are:

icon of St. Nicholas (previously mentioned)

rocks and shells (from many places)

a tarnished ruble (from Kiev)

Shiva Nataraja figurine (from a departed close friend)

Drawings by my sons (obvious)

My father's chunky $5 ring (obvious too)

A daruma doll

Movie ticket (first date with my wife)

So, now that I've shared some of mine, turn to your own shelves and desk drawers. You must have relics.

What are yours?

Vague horrors on Halloween

Henry James couldn't write a ghost story (all you Jamesians out there, my apologies - I can't help saying that), but another James could. Not William. Not Alice. I'm talking about Montague Rhodes -- neither kith nor kin to the other three.

James was the fellow who impressed H.P. Lovecraft - an old Etonian, bachelor and textual scholar who never strayed very far from the world of King's College Cambridge. He straddled the old and new centuries - born in 1862, dying in 1936. He's one of many included in the fine new edition, just in time for Halloween, "The Big Book of Ghost Stories" edited by Otto Penzler (Black Lizard/Random House). Penzler includes an anthology staple, "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" - a story that finely illustates the following rule: "If you  ever discover an artifact in a pile of ruins, you'd best leave it where you found it."

Why, you ask? Simple: Somebody will want it back.

Still, there are so many other James stories that are even finer than that one - "Casting the Runes" (which gives us a fictional encounter with Aleister Crowley) and "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas," which is a better tale of an ancient riddle than Dan Brown could ever write.

Ok, so, just a final word, before you set off in search of a collection of his stories (easily and inexpensively gotten in paperback editions from Penguin Classics) - James is a master of vague horror. He trafficked in the kinds of words that a writing teacher circles with a red pen: "thing," "something," "seemed," "appeared." Uncertainty isn't appreciated in most writing workshops; for M.R. James, however, it was a key to his art.

Here's a chilling moment from the above-mentioned story in the Penzler anthology, in which Parkins, the main character - who has absconded from a seaside ruin with a strange, little whistle - sees something coming behind him:

"...now there began to be seen, far up the shore, a little flicker of something light-coloured and moving to and fro with great swiftness and irregularity. Rapidly growing larger, it, too, declared itself as a figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined. There was something about its motion which made Parkins very unwilling to see it at close quarters. It would stop, raise arms, bow itself toward the sand, then run stooping across the beach to the water-edge and back again..."

I love the fact that, no matter how many times we read this, we can't get a clear picture of what this menacing figure is. That's exactly the point: Who likes a ghost story that's fully explained? Aren't the gaps in the explanation what we crave, especially on Halloween?

Or, as M.R. James himself once advised, in a short essay on the topic: "Ghosts - Treat them Gently!"

P.S.: On hobbit heroism

The epics of old weren't just good fireside entertainment: They were instructive. The stories of the Bible, the Trojan War, the founding of Rome, the ring of the Nibelung, the British warrior-king Arthur presented listeners with stories of the origins of the world, the history of their people, or just examples of heroism, of how to act nobly and true. (Think of all those sweaty, bloodthirsty knights who learned to calm down and act chivalrous because of Arthurian legend.)

Which is what Noble Smith's book about the Shire and the halflings who live there (described in my previous post) manages to do, in its own way. That's something I forgot to mention before, and that I felt deserved a post-script item. Smith's book draws on the courage of characters like Frodo Baggins to teach us all how to be.  (Of course, if I were sitting by a fire right now, I'd probably want to hear Tolkien's original stories instead of an explanation of them.) He does an expert job of balancing accessibility with details that any serious Tolkien fan will appreciate.

Take it from Frodo

The arrival of Peter Jackson's "Hobbit" series of movies translates into two ... no, make it three ... kinds of related books this season:

1) Reissues of Tolkien's best books, including "The Hobbit" (no surprise there)

2) Scholarly works for the deeply obsessed fan of Tolkien's work (like Verlyn Flieger's "Green Suns and Faerie," which I wrote about not long ago)

3) A mixed bag of books, ranging from interesting movie tie-ins to silly, slight works hoping to sell a few units while the movie is in theaters

When I received my advance galley of Noble Smith's "The Wisdom of the Shire: A Short Guide to A Long And Happy Life" (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's), I groaned. "Here's one of the silly, superficial examples of category 3!" I thought. "Ugh. Bilbo and Frodo Baggins on leadership!"

The closer I looked, the more I realized I was wrong. The conceit of this book does seem a bit silly, a bit shameless in its packaging -- to see our lives in terms of the values of Tolkien's little fellows -- but is it?  Hobbits love the simple things in life: food and beer, friends, a good night's sleep. Isn't that like most of us?

If you've read Tom Shippey on the matter, you know Tolkien intended them to reflect us in his mythic cycle of tales -- so Noble Smith's book makes sense. And it's worth a look.

I especially appreciate his chapter on "bearing the burden of your ring." Sauron's awful ring can only be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom, and Frodo nearly dies in the effort. It slowly taints and corrupts him but he never surrenders it even though he has so many chances.  Plenty of people will gladly take it from his finger. Not just Gollum. Give it to Aragorn. Let Gondor take it. Give it to Gandalf. Let the elves deal with it, Frodo. Head for the Shire. Drink a beer and have a warm, long night's sleep.

Frodo refuses, knowing that the ring is poisoning him.

Noble Smith praises Frodo for his focus and dedication. I'd add that Frodo displays a quality most of us lack today. He acts on behalf of a larger community of living beings who are counting on him -- not simply in terms of what is best only for him. Frodo knows there will be terrible consequences for Middle-earth if he surrenders the ring just to save his own skin. So he doesn't. He makes the hard choice that most people wouldn't make today.

I wonder what he'd think of us if the Supreme Ring had somehow teleported him into our world.

(More Hobbity posts to come as Peter Jackson's movie get nearer.)