The White Company

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The White Company at the very beginning of his career. When he finished it he said that he would never write anything better in his life. It's a great boys adventure story set in late 1300s, medieval Europe. It paints an amazing picture of knights and wars and the constant battles between England and France. You can easily forget when you're reading it that the author lived in the late 1800s. He describes in perfect detail what a true knight of England should be, and you get easily caught up in wanting to see the hero become such a knight.

And yet, the thought crossed my mind that, despite all the trappings and talk of honour and nobility, these men are fighting for the sheer sake of fighting. Essentially it's gang warfare in medieval France. Battles are waged over issues of respect and territory is marked out and defended. The fact that men are dying so they can prove who is the stronger and more noble doesn't seem to bother them. These knights aren't fighting evil, they aren't defending their home or the home of another, they are fighting so that the prince of England can expand his territory, and they are fighting men they often see as friends.

But ignore my cynicism and read the book anyway. It's a fast-paced, fun story, and even if Sir Nigel bears a startling similarity to a David Eddings' knight called Mandorallen, it's worth reading.

"If the good will lock themselves up, and if the wicked will still wander free, then alas for the world!"

The Lost World

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an amazing man. An Irishman born in Edinburgh; a medical student studying under a man whose mannerisms, logic, and methods would later be the basis of his most famous character (perhaps this doctor was the original Gregory House...); a faithful husband who devoted himself to his wife and family - nursing his wife through horrible illness and prolonging her life years after the doctors had given up hope; a genius storyteller; a defender of those falsely accused; a perceptive observer of world events (During World War 1 he contacted the War Office with several forward thinking suggestions, suggestions of things like a Channel Tunnel, body armour, inflatable lifeboats etc. These suggestions were largely ignored as too fanciful by all except a young Winston Churchill who wrote to thank him for his ideas.); and the man who gave us one of the greatest if not the greatest detectives of all time. Sadly Conan Doyle was also a man who spent his life spiritually lost - raised a Catholic, he rejected Catholicism in university, declaring himself an agnostic. After his first wife died, he sunk into a deep depression, and then he turned to spiritualism and the occult. And you see reflections of that in all his work - the God-given logic of a Biblical worldview, the drivenness of Catholicism, the sheer rationalism, and the emptiness that that rationalism brings. It's ironic that the master of logic and rationality becomes a disciple of the occult, but logic can give you no answers in the face of death, and if you don't turn to Christ, you will turn to something else.

Anyways, on to his book, The Lost World. This was written after Holmes in the latter part of his life. It was part of a small series of books starring Professor Challenger - a brilliant but obnoxious explorer and scientist. This was before the days of science fiction, but The Lost World is a classic science fiction story, in fact probably one of the earliest science fiction stories and one that influenced Michael Crichton in his writing.

The Lost World refers to a place in South America where a giant basalt formation is home to dinosaurs and other pre-historic creatures. Ironically, though this story like almost all science fiction is rooted and grounded in an evolutionary worldview, it presents an interesting alternative to evolution. The whole premise of the book is based on the idea that it is possible for animals to never evolve or become extinct if the natural conditions are right. In other words dinosaurs and men could, conceivably have lived side by side, and a natural catastrophe (like a Flood?) could have preserved some animals while killing others. However, this idea is weakened by the entry of the ape men who seem to be added almost as an afterthought and don't really contribute all that much to the storyline except in providing an escape route.

It's a good action-adventure. Short and entertaining.

The Taming of the Shrew

I ran across this charming modern version of Shakespeare on youtube a few weeks ago. Besides the fact that for once Rufus Sewell plays a good guy, it's really a very likeable adaptation of one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. Granted there are some pretty major and eyebrow raising liberties taken, but on the whole, entertaining. You can watch the whole version on youtube - at least for now.

Worth A Listen...