A Sense of Wonder

Elizabeth Zelvin

Note: This post was published by accident for about two hours in November, along with the one scheduled for the same day. So if it seems familiar to you, that's why.

In the Odyssey, Homer’s epic poem about the Greek hero Odysseus’s long, adventure-filled journey home from the Trojan War, there is a passage in which Odysseus visits the Underworld and talks to the shades of the dead. One of these, the blind prophet Tiresias, tells him that once he’s straightened out the mess he’ll find at home, he must make another journey in order to appease the sea god Poseidon. He must put an oar on his shoulder and travel inland until he’s so far from the sea that he meets people who have no idea what the oar is.

Here’s the passage itself, in Ian Johnston’s translation:

Once you have killed
the suitors in your house with your sharp sword,
by cunning or in public, then take up
a well-made oar and go, until you reach
a people who know nothing of the sea,
who don't put salt on any food they eat,
and have no knowledge of ships painted red,
or well-made oars that serve those ships as wings.
I'll tell you a sure sign you won't forget—
when someone else runs into you and says
you've got a shovel used for winnowing
on your broad shoulders, then fix that fine oar
in the ground there, and make rich sacrifice
to lord Poseidon with a ram, a bull,
and a boar that breeds with sows.

It’s a wonderful poem and a grand adventure story. But what strikes me about the story of the oar, composed close to 3,000 years ago, is that it is no longer possible to travel—whether on foot like Odysseus or in a car or plane—anywhere on earth where nobody has ever heard of an oar or any item a traveler might bring along. Thanks to modern communications, we’ve seen it all.

What has happened to our sense of wonder? I’m afraid it has been lost in proportion to our ability to transmit images and information, not only of everything in the world, but lately of many things that we only imagine or speculate about as well. We don’t have to visit Antarctica to see Emperor penguins marching 70 miles from the sea to their breeding colonies. We’ve seen it on the big screen. For the same reason, we don’t have to be astronauts to see the great blue and white sphere of Earth floating in space.

If teleportation became a reality, and someone suddenly materialized in front of our eyes, how astonished would we be? We saw it years ago on Star Trek. When light streams from Sookie Stackhouse’s fingertips on True Blood, we’re interested, but not amazed. We can do the same by squeezing the LED light on our keychain. If we could time-travel to the age of dinosaurs, how awed would we be by sights that had lost their power to surprise us by the time Jurassic Park III came out?

The two greatest mysteries we know are whether we are the only intelligent species in the universe and death itself. Even these have had the edge of wonder rubbed off them. Aliens? Everybody knows our nearest neighbors, should they ever choose to reveal themselves, will look a lot like ET: attenuated body, narrow, triangular white face, big eyes. Death? There’ll be this tunnel of light….

Even children, whose sense of wonder is supposed to be an essential, have become blasé. Not so very long ago, even very simple things outside their experience could surprise and delight them. Consider this passage from Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar, written in 1949:

“Every birthday had been made iridescent and every Christmas a tingling expectation by the thought of Great-uncle Charles’s present….Once he had sent a set of chopsticks, which upset nursery discipline for a week. And once it had been the skin of a snake; the glory of owning the skin of a snake had made Simon dizzy for days.”

My two little granddaughters, who get more presents than God, are certainly capable of delight, pleasure, and gratitude. But a sense of wonder? I’m afraid it’s rapidly becoming extinct.

Holiday Book Give-away

Sandra Parshall

It’s the gift-giving season, and time to put some new mysteries in readers’ hands, in the hope of making more fans for the authors. Take a look at these recent releases and leave a comment with your top three choices (to increase the chance that you’ll win a book you want). Then send an e-mail with your mailing address to sandraparshall@yahoo.com. I’ll notify the winners tomorrow. Happy reading!

To start, here are three Christmas-themed mysteries:

In A Holiday Yarn by Sally Goldenbaum, the Seaside Knitters are turning richly hued yarns into gifts. But when a guest is found murdered on the local B and B's snowy porch, the knitters set aside their needles to pursue justice and restore joy to the season.

Mistletoe and Mayhem by Kate Kingsbury takes readers back to the Pennyfoot Hotel (a place as dangerous as Cabot Cove!), where Cecily is decorating for Christmas festivities. Soon, however, someone is found dead and another person goes missing, and the hotel sleuths must find the killer and restore holiday cheer.

  
The Fat Man by Ken Harmon is something completely different. In this North Pole noir tale, the disillusioned 1,300-year-old elf Gumdrop Coal decides to give a wake-up call to parents who can’t keep their kids off Santa’s naughty list. When somebody murders a parent, Gumdrop is framed and has to solve the crime to clear his name.

 If you’d rather forget about the holidays for a few hours, there are plenty of read-anytime mysteries to provide distraction. Try one of these:

 
A Marked Man by Barbara Hamilton brings back Abigail Adams (wife of John) as a thoughtful sleuth in this unusual and beautifully written series set in Colonial America. John takes the case when young Henry Knox is accused of murdering a royal representative to the colonies. Was the killing prompted by rivalry for a woman’s affections, or was it politically motivated? While John works to clear his client, Abigail pursues the killer – and soon the killer is pursuing her.

 
In Threats at Three by Ann Purser, cleaning woman Lois Meade once again moonlights as a sleuth in the English village of Long Farnden. After a fundraiser event for the highly contentious restoration of the Village Hall, a dead body turns up in the canal. Is the murder connected to the restoration dispute? Can the police solve the crime without Lois’s help?

 

 

 Murder at the PTA by Laura Alden is a debut novel and first in a series featuring Beth Kennedy, owner of a children’s bookshop. Soon after Beth reluctantly joins the board of the elementary school PTA, the unpopular principle is murdered. When the local gossip blog fans the flames of speculation, Beth races to find the murderer before he – or she – kills again.

Shroud of Dishonor by Maureen Ash continues the historical Templar Knight mysteries featuring Bascot de Marins. The shocking discovery of a strangled prostitute in the Templar chapel throws the order into disarray. Alongside the corpse is a purse containing 30 silver coins – the same amount Judas received for betraying Jesus. Is the murder revenge for a Templar brother’s betrayal? Has one of their own broken his vow of chastity? The order’s preceptor enlists Bascot to determine whether an outsider is seeking to dishonor the Templars or a murderer walks among them. One thing soon becomes clear: the killer’s work is not yet over.

To be entered in a drawing for a free book, leave a comment naming your top three choices, then send your mailing address to sandraparshall@yahoo.com. (Your address will not be used for any other purpose.) And when you go shopping, remember that books make great gifts!

New release!

A Killer Crop, the fourth book in the Orchard Series (Berkley Prime Crime) by Sheila Connolly is released today!

When Meg Corey's mother arrives unannounced in Granford, Massachusett , Meg's sure it's not just to pay a surprise visit to the apple of her eye. The timing is terrible–it's harvest season and Meg is understaffed in the orchard. Plus Elizabeth Corey is clearly hiding the real purpose of her trip from her daughter.

After an English professor from Amherst–and an old friend of her mother–is found dead on the floor of a cider house, Elizabeth is interrogated by the police, and then grilled by her daughter. She is indeed keeping a secret–but could Meg's own mother really have committed murder? One thing is clear: someone decided to teach the professor a lesson. And the key to unlocking the mystery may lie with a poet who could not stop for Death . . .

Crone Birth

Sharon Wildwind

As part of my day job I’m in and out of a lot of places where older people live. I was at an assisted living facility at 9:30 last Sunday morning. The visitor sign-in binder was on a table in one corner of the main activities room.

In that room 20 people were gathered for a church service. The minister’s sermon focused on community reaction to unwed mothers 2000 years ago in Israel, and some of the challenges Mary would have faced. The congregation listened politely, but from their expressions I wasn’t sure that they were completely engaged with the topic.

On my way down the hall I passed a smaller room used for art. There was one woman in there, bent over her art. Literally bent over it because she had severe kyphosis, the curving of the back that happens in people with osteoporosis. Someone had rigged an easel for her set at a thirty degree angle and the perfect height so that she could look directly down onto her canvas.

The easel and canvas were turned away from the door, so I couldn’t see what she was painting, but I could see her palette, which someone — maybe the same someone who had rigged her easel — had attached to a bannister with a rotating ball head so that it could be angled to the exact spot where she reached out with her brush. The paints on the palette were bright yellow, orange and red. Unlike the people down the hall, she was completely engaged in what she was doing.

After I finished my visit half an hour later, I walked back down the hall. The people at church were milling around, collecting their sweaters and other belongings; talking about what was on the menu for lunch. The woman was still at her easel. I doubt that she knew time had passed.

Unlike me.

I’ve been sitting here for an hour, hoping this blog would build to a crescendo, some profound conclusion about the image of that solitary woman painting alone on a snowy Sunday morning. Truthfully, I don’t think I have a profound conclusion unless it's to remind us all to do art, do it all the time, and keep doing it.

This was simply a wonderful image that I wanted to share with you.

I also sent a little prayer of thanksgiving for the person who had the imagination and took the time to build the easel and palette holder especially for her. We need more people like that.

St. Nick and Mystery

by Julia Buckley
St. Nicholas came last night. Did he visit you? My boys are too old for him, really, but he kindly fills their boots anyway (and those are some jumbo boots these days).

He is the spirit of generosity that heralds the holidays, and he is a part of my tradition. My German mother ushered him into our lives, and we always woke to boots full of big brown walnuts and huge red apples, as well as little German chocolates, marzipan and tiny gifties. In thirty years St. Nick hasn't changed all that much, although some of the wee toys are quite techno and modern.

I'm not the only one to cling to my St. Nicholas tradition; today at the high school where I teach, the students will take five minutes of second period to place one shoe in the hall; then, during that class period (which they must spend with one foot unshod), the student council elves (sent by St. Nick, of course) will come and fill those shoes with candy.

St. Nicholas is considered a sort of distant cousin to Santa Claus, and his arrival in early December coincides with the celebration of Advent. He is the promise of good things to come.

As a mystery writer and someone who thinks a lot about crime, I was always surprised that neither St. Nick nor Santa Claus's visits bothered my children at all when they were young. After all, these were old guys in strange costumes who basically broke into our house in the middle of the night. But the word "presents" magically cancels out any suspicion or fear, as it did for me when I was young.

So as I write this, despite the fact that my sons are sixteen and twelve, I am about to leave for the store where they sell chocolate coins and stocking stuffers (which can also stuff boots). If there's one thing I hope my children never grow out of, it's a good tradition or two.

Meanwhile, I wonder if a mystery has ever been set on St. Nicholas night . . . .

Murder for Christmas?

by guest blogger Krista Davis

Some people might think it’s peculiar to write about a murder that takes place around the holidays. After all, it’s the hap-hap-happiest time of year. I love Christmas. The decorating, and shopping, and baking -- the whole thing. I even like stringing lights outside with fingers stiff from the cold. I look forward to feasting on roast goose with friends and family and curling up by the fireplace with hot chocolate and a good mystery.


As we grow up the joys and disappointments of the holidays no longer come from the packages under the tree. They move up to a bigger and less predictable source, the behavior of our families and friends. We look forward to the warmth and pleasures of family, but we dread dealing with the mother who drinks too much or the husband who is having an affair. Competent, respected adults shudder at the thought of the holidays with a parent so critical that they’re reduced to insecure, angry adolescents again. How does one cope with a parent who says not to come home unless the daughter has lost weight?


Earlier this year I was walking along a street in Charlottesville, Virginia with Liz Zelvin. She told me (and I hope I’m paraphrasing you correctly, Liz) that one of the first things her clients have to learn is that they can’t control other people. I think it can take a long time for us to reach the point where we understand that. We can’t make someone love us, or force them to stop drinking, or lecture them to a size two. All those things have to come from within the other person.


Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop us from trying. For some reason, the holidays seem to amplify our expectations of perfection. None of those problems are new. The husband’s affair, the mother’s drinking, the poor relationship between mother and daughter all existed long before the holidays, perhaps for years. Yet we still expect people to be the way we wish they were when it comes to the holidays.


Add the stress of finding this year’s must-have toy, sewing a costume for a pageant, baking cookies for the office cookie swap, attending boring parties with a spouse, cursing at tangled lights, and dealing with a turkey everyone forgot to thaw, and it’s amazing that there aren’t more yuletide murders. Of course, mystery writers love the combination of unrealistic expectations and stress!


In The Diva Cooks A Goose, domestic diva Sophie Winston has a chance to relax because her brother and sister-in-law, Lacy, are hosting the big family celebration. Lacy is a perfectionist, the type who makes lists for everything. She planned ahead and has everything under control until Christmas Eve, when the Christmas presents are stolen right out from under the tree. Poor Lacy. That’s only the beginning of holiday disasters for her family. When her newly separated father arrives with a date, more than one person is ready to commit a merry murder. While Lacy copes with parents she can’t control, Sophie is on the trail of a killer, and when she finds him, she plans to cook his goose!

I wish you and yours a warm and loving holiday season. May your celebrations be festive and may the only murders be properly confined to spellbinding mysteries.

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Krista Davis writes the Domestic Diva Mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime. The first book in the series, THE DIVA RUNS OUT OF THYME, was nominated for an Agatha Award. Her most recent book, THE DIVA COOKS A GOOSE, launches on December 7th!

DOING THE RIGHT THING

by Sheila Connolly

I was sitting in the passenger seat in my husband’s car in the post office parking lot, waiting for him to mail some bills, when another car pulled out of a parking space and backed directly into our driver-side door. It made a definite crunching sound, so I waited a moment for the driver to pull forward again or at least stop. Nope—she just kept going, right out of the parking lot.

But I'm a mystery writer, right? So of course I got her license number. Beyond that I was pretty much useless as an observer: I could tell you that the driver was a white-haired female, not tall, and that the car was an older model and showed no damage when I watched it pull away (while memorizing the license plate). And that was about it. Don’t ask me to be a witness at your trial.

My husband didn’t even notice the damage when he got into the car. Maybe “damage” is too strong a word: the door panel was slighted pushed in, period. I had to tell him about the incident. To put this into perspective, he drives a 1993 Honda Civic with a lot of rust, so you might guess we aren’t too concerned about appearances, at least where our cars are concerned.

But then we faced a dilemma. Do we report it to the police? There was no question of filing an insurance claim, but still, it was an accident, and the woman had driven away, oblivious, which is itself a crime. So we decided to go talk to the police (I should note that the police station is two blocks from the post office—it's a small town).

Armed with the license number, my husband went into the station. (I, the witness, elected to stay in the car so as not to overwhelm our tiny police force. Besides, it's my husband's name on the registration). An officer entered the license number into his computer and came up with the owner of the car: an 84-year-old local woman driving a ’93 Mercedes. The officer did not reveal whether she has had any prior accidents.

He then offered my husband a choice: one, he could file a formal complaint (which, the officer implied, would involve both time and paperwork), or two, he could call the woman. Huh? The “victim” in this case is supposed to call up a stranger and tell her that she had run into him and didn’t even seem to notice? And that's all?

I was disturbed that the police seemed uninterested in doing anything about this, and came close to discouraging my husband to act. Face it, this woman is still on the road, in her tank of a car. This event took place on a beautiful day, with clear visibility, so she has no excuses. What if the next time she runs into something, it’s somebody’s beloved pet, or worse, a child? She is at best unaware of her surroundings; at worst, criminally negligent.

What would you do?

Celebrating Chanukah

Elizabeth Zelvin

Last night was the first night of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. It celebrates a miracle in the story of the Maccabees, a band of brothers who fought against oppressors of the Jews during one of many such periods in Jewish history (in this case, the second century BC). The bad guys had sacked the Temple in Jerusalem, the most holy place of the Jews. The desecration included letting the sacred flame, which was supposed to burn continuously, go out. The good guys cleaned the place up and relit the lamp, but there was only enough oil for it to burn for one night. By a miracle, the flame lasted for eight nights, until help and supplies arrived.

That is why we celebrate Chanukah by lighting the special candelabra called the menorah, starting with one candle on the first night and adding another candle each night until the whole menorah glows on the eighth night. The menorah actually has nine branches, not eight. The extra candle, the shammash (which in my family was always pronounced shammas), is used to light the others. My goyische husband has to be reminded every year that the candles must never be extinguished, but burn down and go out on their own. This requires some planning to avoid going out (or if possible, leaving the room) while the candles are burning. Celebrate, yes; burn the house down, no.

Like reading Hebrew, lighting the menorah is done backwards, from right to left. (Or do I only think that’s backwards because I’m lefthanded?) We sing a special blessing over the candles, and if children are present, they get Chanukah gelt (gold). When I was a kid, the gelt was actual money. Then the fashion changed, maybe to avoid raising overly mercenary children, and the usual payoff was chocolates shaped like coins and wrapped in gold foil. In these health-conscious times, the pendulum is swinging the other way. The last couple of years, I’ve been getting gold (or at least gold-colored) one dollar coins at the bank to give my granddaughters.

Some Jewish American families give Chanukah presents. If the children had their way, they’d get one present on the first night, two on the second night, three on the third…for a total of 36 presents. It doesn’t happen, but the kids keep trying. It’s traditional to eat foods made with oil, particularly latkes. You’ve gotta love a religion that makes eating potato pancakes a pious observance.

In fact, Chanukah is a minor holiday, rather than a high holy day. It’s only become such a big event in America because it was so hard on Jewish children to see their non-Jewish friends enjoying all the excitement and abundance of Christmas. When I was growing up, we celebrated Christmas with stockings and presents and a tabletop tree (an artificial silver one, popular during the Fifties) hung with ornaments.
As we got older, we became more aware of Chanukah. But when we were little, my mother didn’t think we’d find it exciting enough, compared to Christmas. In later years, my mom denied all this—a perfect example of selective amnesia.

In our ecumenical family today, we celebrate both holidays. I love trimming the tree and celebrating peace and love. But I love lighting the Chanukah candles too, and celebrating freedom, hope, and my Jewish heritage.

The writer's a jerk. Who cares?

Sandra Parshall

I don’t get to use the word bemused often, but I’ll seize the opportunity to use it today: I am bemused when I hear a reader say something like, “I’ve always loved his books, but since I found out what a jerk he is, I refuse to read anything else he writes.”

What does one thing have to do with the other?

Thanks to the internet, big conferences, and public appearances, writers are more visible to readers now than ever before. If you’re a jerk, readers will know about it sooner or later. Get drunk at a conference and it will be the talk of the internet for weeks. Insult a bookseller and you will never live it down. Speak in withering terms of the mystery genre and thousands of fans as well as crime fiction authors will sharpen their knives. And vow never to read another word you publish.

Why aren’t other artists held to the same standards of behavior as writers? If we treated actors this way, nobody would ever watch a movie or TV show again. There actually was a time when “bad” behavior seriously damaged an actor’s career, but audiences these days seem able to separate the performance from the personal life of the performer, and periods of censure – if they exist at all – are quickly over.

When a reader says never again, though, she’s likely to mean it. An author whose personal behavior offends readers runs a serious risk of losing them forever. Why? Is it because reading is an intimate experience? A writer’s words crawl directly into our minds and hearts. When we read, we’re alone with the words and the characters, and for a while we’re living in the world the author created. Observing or hearing about a writer’s flawed behavior seems to ruin the reading experience for some people.

I feel fortunate that I can enjoy books without being distracted by what I know about the author’s personality. I realize people are complex, and an author’s work may come from a level much deeper than the surface she or he presents to the world. Even a jerk may produce a sublime book. I’m sometimes surprised by the qualities readers see in my own novels, because I’m not always conscious of those things while I’m writing. Yet I am aware that the person who writes the books isn’t the same person you’ll meet at any public event.

I believe a lot of writers have dual natures. I make allowances for that when I hear that a certain writer is a snob, an obnoxious bore, a microphone hog on panels. If I enjoy the author’s books, the writer will have to slaughter my cats to dissuade me from reading them. (I do have limits.)

How do you react when you hear about a favorite writer behaving badly? Have you ever stopped reading books you loved just because you disliked the author as a person?

The Uncanny Valley

Sharon Wildwind

This past weekend I finally watched Happy Feet. With apologies to all of the people who worked very hard on the movie, it didn’t grab me.

Since I get crabby and curmudgeonly in the dark time of the year, I asked my husband for his perspective. “Is it just me or is there something wrong with this movie?”

He said, “It’s an excellent example of the uncanny valley.”

I blinked. “The uncanny what?”

In 1906 a German psychiatrist, Ernst Jentsch, wrote an essay called On the Psychology of the Uncanny. Thirteen years later Sigmund Freud picked up on the concept and wrote another essay called The Uncanny. Freud’s essay was translated into English; Jentsch’s essay wasn’t translated until 1995, so for seventy-five years the English-speaking world was more familiar with Freud’s work than with Jentsch’s.

Canny is Scottish word meaning to be warm and snug. To be uncanny is to be just the opposite: cold, disturbing, and revolting.

The uncanny valley theory goes something like this: as a group human beings have a general belief that standard-looking human equals safe and non-standard-looking human equals creepy or uncanny. There is a huge cultural overlay of what “standard-looking” and “non-standard-looking” mean, so what looks creepy in North America may not look creepy in Africa or New Guinea and vice-versa. There are also age and other sub-categories of difference; a five-year old and a fifty-five-year old looking at the same person may react differently.

Initially this theory was applied just to human beings but as computers, robots, artificial intelligence, and computer-generated imaging developed, the same theory was applied to non-humans that behaved like humans.

Think about the Star Wars robot R2-D2, which looks like a mobile trash can and sounds like a whistling tea kettle alternating with a very angry bird. R2-D2 is at the 0% human characteristics start of the scale. Viewers might find it endearing or annoying, but it is generally not perceived as creepy.

At the other end of the scale Lieutenant Commander Data in The Next Generation is hugely creepy. Data should have been hatred, but wasn’t. There were probably two reasons for this. First, he was past the uncanny valley point on the scale and, except for weird colored skin and wearing contact lens, he looked very, very human.

I often wondered if the contact lens play a part. I’ve read actors’ interviews where they talked about how uncomfortable most theatrical contact lenses are. I couldn’t watch a scene with Data without thinking that I was watching a human being who was probably experiencing something between discomfort and real pain; I wanted the scene to end so he could remove those lenses.

The second saving grace was that the writers wrote and Brent Spiner played Data as a character of conflicts and self-depreciation. It was bemused, confused, and curious; in other words, admitting especially to itself that it was not human and therefore not a threat.

In between those two points, at approximately the point on the chart where an artificial creation looks 75% to 85% human, the most common reaction changes from positive to negative: the uncanny valley. The reaction become positive again only when the representation approaches looking 100% human.

The uncanny valley is why Frankenstein horrified audiences. And why I think that David Lynch made the right choice in the movie, The Elephant Man (1980), to show—except for one brief clip—Joseph Merrick as either clothed or as an outline behind a screen. In the first case, the uncanny valley effect added to the character; in the second, seeing Merrick’s deformities for a longer period would have detracted from the audience’s ability to be sympathetic to the character.

I suspect that Mumbles, too, fell into the valley point on the chart.

My main problem with Mumbles was his clear blue eyes and the never changing baby penguin appearance. As a writer I get it: use physical characteristics to emphasize that the character is an outsider.

As a business person who markets, I get it even more. A chubby, blue-eyed, downy-soft stuffed animal should sell like hot cakes. It did. Still objects produce a shallower uncanny valley than moving objects do. I suspect I might find Mumbles as a stuffed animal less objectionable than I found him as an animated character.

Most of all, I found the romance scenes between Gloria, who had developed into an adult penguin and Mumbles, who hadn’t, as major creepiness. It was like those tabloid stories of teachers sleeping with their students, and I wish the people who created the characters had made different choices.