Updates (April 15-19, 2024)

Wellman, Brian Moore, Northrop Frye, Guadalupe, Eifelheim, Niggle

I want to keep reminding everyone I am still here and still writing. In this case, the reminder comes in the form of updates! These updates are on the podcast, bits of information from friends, reading updates and future podcast episodes.

Let’s begin!

John the Balladeer by Manly Wade Wellman

This doesn’t quite fit in with the time frame in the title, but I wanted to let people know that Haffner Press finally finished and shipped their new two volume collection of Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer. The announced it in 2018 and I ordered it in 2021 if memory serves. I got my set about two weeks ago and I have been paging through it and reading random sections. I am very excited to dig into this collection. I plan on doing at least one episode on Wellman’s works at some point in the future.

From Haffner Press’ website:

“John, whose last name is never revealed, is a wandering singer who carries a guitar strung with strings of pure silver. He is a veteran of the Korean War and served in the U.S. Army as a sharpshooter (in the novel After Dark, he mentions that his highest rank was PFC). In his travels, he frequently encounters creatures and superstitions from the folk tales and superstitions of the mountain people. Though John has no formal education, he is self-taught, highly intelligent and widely read; it is implied that his knowledge of occult and folk legendarium is of Ph.D level. This knowledge has granted him competent use of white magic, which he has used on occasion to overcome enemies or obstacles, but it is primarily his courage, wit and essential goodness that always enables him to triumph over supernatural evils (although the silver strings of his guitar and his possession of a copy of The Long Lost Friend are also powerful tools in fighting evil magic), while basic Army training allows him to physically deal with human foes.

The stories are rich in the customs and lore of the region and many of the folk songs John sings are authentic as well. Wellman did introduce some original songs and legends but his creations blend seamlessly with the traditional material. Whereas Tolkien integrated Northern mythology into his mythos, and C.S. Lewis the European Fairy Tales of yore, Wellman’s stories are drenched in the folktales and songs of old Americana; the haunting stories of the slaves and the tall tales of the Revolution, strange beasts, witch-women, and dark apparitions. As famed author Karl Edward Wagner wrote: “These stories are chilling and enchanting, magical and down-to-earth, full of wonder and humanity. They are fun. They are like nothing else you’ve read before.”—Adapted from Wikipedia”

Beneath the Silent Heavens and Northrop Frye

This past Monday, April 15, 2024, the most recent episode of I Might Believe in Faeries came out. This was a discussion with Jonathan Geltner and Gregorio Montejo about Brian Christopher Moore’s Beneath the Silent Heavens. I briefly wrote about Moore’s novel in a previous post.

Friend of the show (and with me), Ben Espen, recently drew my attention to the similarities to what Jonathan, Gregorio and I were discussing to a section in Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism.

Ben:

“I don't remember hearing Jonathan mentioning this link, but the idea of seeing a story both sequentially in time and holistically all at once is in the Anatomy of Criticism. I'm sure it isn't original to Frye, but it struck me very strongly listening to the most recent episode.

It is in the second essay, in the formal phase, symbol as image.

The form of a poem, that to which every detail relates, is the same whether it is examined as stationary or as moving through the work from beginning to end, just as a musical composition has the same form when we study the score as it has when we listen to the performance. The mythos is the dianoia in movement; the dianoia is the mythos in stasis.

The form of the poem is the same whether it is studied as narrative or as meaning, hence the structure of imagery in Macbeth may be studied as a pattern derived from the text, or as a rhythm of repetition falling on an audience's ear. There is a vague notion that the latter method produces a simpler result, and may therefore be used as a commonsense corrective to the niggling subtleties of textual study. The analogy of music again may be helpful. The average audience at a symphony knows very little about sonata form, and misses practically all the subtleties detected by an analysis of the score; yet those subtleties are really there, and as the audience can hear everything that is being played, it gets them all as part of a linear experience; the awareness is less conscious, but not less real. The same is true of the response to the imagery of a highly concentrated poetic drama.

The inference is that all arts possess both a temporal and a spatial aspect, whichever takes the lead when they are presented. The score of a symphony may be studied all at once, as a spread-out pattern: a painting may be studied as the track of an intricate dance of the eye. Works of literature also move in time like music and spread out in images like painting. The word narrative or mythos conveys the sense of movement caught by the ear, and the word meaning or dianoia conveys, or at least preserves, the sense of simultaneity caught by the eye. We listen to the poem as it moves from beginning to end, but as soon as the whole of it is in our minds at once we "see" what it means.”

I have not read Frye but it sounds like I need to. I have Anatomy on my bookshelf, I just need to find time to read it. Anyway, this is good food for thought on fiction in general.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

The next episode of I Might Believe in Faeries will be another discussion of the Marian apparition, Our Lady of Guadalupe. This historical and mythic event has a special place in my heart since the feast day, December 12, is the same day as my eldest daughter’s birthday.

I will be discussing a new book that came out from Sophia Institute Press called Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy: How God Prepared the Americas for Conversion Before the Lady Appeared. I am planning on interviewing the authors next week and I am very excited. This is easily one of the best books on the subject of pagan preparation for the coming of Christ (a niche genre) I have ever read. If all goes well, then the interview should come out at the very end of April, 2024. I tend to cut things pretty close!

Michael Flynn’s Eifelheim Discussion

I am nearing the end of my re-read of Eifelheim and I am getting ready to discuss this classic work of science fiction. We are going to push the discussion back into the first week of May or so because another guest is getting his copy of the book. I want to give him some extra time to read it. This is a book full of big theological ideas and a clash between the modern and medieval worldviews. No character is perfectly virtuous but many of them want to be.

Will the Krenken succeed in returning to their homeworld? Will Dietrich’s past be discovered by the outside world? Tune in to find out! The episode will be available late May or mid-June.

I am thinking May 8th at 08:45 pm Central Time as a potential discussion date.

Remember, you can still read the book and participate in the discussion if you are a paying subscriber at any level to I Might Believe in Faeries. The easiest way to become a member is through substack. I am starting to move away from Patreon.

Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle

I just wanted to say that I finally read Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle. What a small, yet amazing tale. This is one of those stories that I have listened to several lectures and discussions on it before actually reading it. I have to say, Tolkien surpasses the hype yet again.

If you are a creative type, an artist, a writer, or a reader, then I highly recommend this meditation on sub-creation and what happens to our artistic endeavors, however small, in the next life. God forgets nothing and delights in our smallest quirks. It is also a moving portrayal of Purgatory and the mercy and justice of Christ.

Thank you all for reading! I have more episodes planned through the summer, but nothing set in stone as of right now. Tune in for more content in the future.