L.B.: 28:06:42:12

Left Behind, pp. 387-391

"I felt my heart strangely warmed," John Wesley wrote of the moment of his conversion. Something similar is happening to Buck Williams in this passage, but his warmness is far stranger than Wesley's:

Buck did not trust himself to respond with coherence. He still had chills, yet he felt sticky with sweat. What was happening to him? He managed a whisper, "I want to thank you for your time, and for dinner," he said.

I don't know if you do this too, but sometimes when I read a scene -- particularly one with a vivid description of some gesture or facial expression -- I find myself imitating that description.* That response is a kind of test, a way of verifying whether the description is realistic, whether it rings true. With scenes like the one above, I find myself mentally re-enacting them. Try it yourself here. Does Buck's "whisper" make any sense? Rayford gives his hour-long, uninterrupted speech on End Times prophecy. He finally reaches the end and Buck doesn't comment, doesn't say, "Well, that was fascinating/interesting/different," he just whispers -- whispers -- "I want to thank you for your time, and for dinner."

I just can't see that happening.

The authors' task here is not an easy one. Buck is on the verge of an epiphany, of one of those magical, transforming moments when we catch, or almost catch, a glimpse of something transcendent and our heart is "strangely warmed." You don't have to have experienced a religious conversion to appreciate what Wesley meant by that. If you've ever had any such glimpse -- any moment of grace, or clarity, or of the sudden onrush of overwhelming beauty, insight or love then you know what Wesley's talking about. (Kate: "Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany." Angel: "I keep saying that, but nobody's listening.")

Nothing like that seems to be happening here for Buck, who seems to be experiencing flu-like symptoms. The authors want us to interpret this scene as the working of the Holy Spirit through Rayford. It comes across more as the working of salmonella through, perhaps, the chicken.

Buck's spiritual crisis might be easier to understand if the authors ever actually let us hear what it was in Rayford speech that gave him chills. Then again, knowing what we know about the authors and about their decidedly uninspiring prophecy checklist, that might make Buck's spiritual sweatiness harder to understand. Based on the rough outline of Rayford's speech that we are given, he never deals with what you'd think would be the key point: The world is going to end. Soon.

If I were Rayford, I'd have led off with that fact: "How old are you, Williams? 30? You'll never be 38." That would seem like an attention-getter. Rayford should be offering a constant running countdown, like Frank the rabbit in Donnie Darko.

Instead, Rayford tells Buck his whole life story and then babbles about the Two Witnesses in Jerusalem. He knows that the world is going to end in almost exactly seven years -- knows this with certainty, having read it in the Bible, or at least on the back cover of Left Behind -- but he doesn't seem to think this is pertinent information to share with his reporter friend.

Thus when Buck asks Hattie for her take on Rayford's theory, she responds:

"I think Rayford is sincere and thoughtful. Whether he's right, I have no idea. That's all beyond me and very foreign. But I am convinced he believes it."

That's the kind of abstract opinion that you might offer if you'd spent the last hour discussing Rayford's theory of, say, the Tunguska Event. Rayford's presentation seems to invite just such an abstract response because he neglects to include the salient bit about the end of the world. If he had seen fit to mention, when they started dinner, that the world was going to end in 6 years, 357 days and 16 hours, or if he had mentioned when they were finished that the world was going to end in 6 years, 357 days and 14 hours, then "Whether he's right, I have no idea" would have been a mind-bogglingly inadequate response.

The more you consider this, the stranger it seems. Rayford is portrayed throughout this chapter as speaking with a desperate urgency because he knows the clock is ticking. He grows increasingly frustrated that no one else seems to appreciate his urgency, but he steadfastly refuses to fill them in on the whole ticking-clock aspect. Maybe he noticed the looks being exchanged between Buck and his daughter and he decided to withhold this information. After all, you tell two young people that the world is going to end in 6 years and 357 days and they're probably not going to want to take things slow.

"I will get back to you before using any of your quotes," Buck says (possibly still whispering, it's not clear). He says this, apparently, to give Jenkins the opportunity to insert some of his research into the exotic world of professional reporters:

That was nonsense, of course. He had said it only to give himself a reason to reconnect with the pilot. He might have a lot of personal questions about this, but he never allowed people he interviewed to see their quotes in advance. He trusted his tape recorder and his memory, and he had never been accused of misquoting.

Buck looked back at the captain and saw a strange look cross his face. He looked -- what? Disappointed? Yes, then resigned.

Suddenly Buck remembered who he was dealing with. This was an intelligent, educated man. Surely he knew that reporters never checked back with their sources. He probably thought he was getting a journalistic brush-off.

A rookie mistake, Buck, he reprimanded himself. You just underestimated your own source.

Buck was putting his equipment away ...

If you're interviewing someone and you may have further questions later, there's no reason not to say, "I may call you later to follow up." But that wouldn't have allowed Jenkins to show off what he's learned about reportering, or to remind us again about Rayford's Ph.D. from Embry-Riddle. For all of that research, though, Jenkins still seems to think that a reporter's tape recorder is some kind of giant reel-to-reel machine with a detachable microphone -- the sort of "equipment" one would have to "put away" rather than just tucking back into one's jacket pocket. (He refers to it later in this scene as "the machine.")

Buck was putting his equipment away when he noticed Chloe was crying, tears streaming down her face.

Apparently Chloe also had the chicken.

What was it with these women? Hattie Durham had been weeping when she and the captain had finished talking that afternoon. Now Chloe.

"What was it with these women?" Gender isn't the common variable here. The common variable is Rayford. Spend an hour with this guy and you'll wind up sobbing uncontrollably or shivering through your sweat. Both of these have happened to me just from reading about him.

Buck could identify, at least with Chloe. If she was crying because she had been moved by her father's sincerity and earnestness, it was no surprise. Buck had a lump in his throat, and for the first time since he had lain facedown in fear in Israel during the Russian attack, he wished he had a private place to cry.

Buck assumes he knows why Chloe is upset, so he doesn't bother to ask her if she's OK, or to offer her a handkerchief, or to make any of the other sort of feeble gestures we humans tend to make when we notice that someone sitting next to us has tears streaming down her face.

It's at this point that Buck asks Hattie for her opinion, "off the record."

"Why off the record?" Hattie snapped. "The opinions of a pilot are important but the opinions of a flight attendant aren't?"

No, silly. It's not because you're a flight attendant. Your opinions don't matter because you're a woman -- which is also why the only opportunity you've been given to speak in this chapter is just one more attempt to portray you as thin-skinned and bitchy. That attempt backfires again. Score another point for meta-Hattie.

Rayford was not surprised at Hattie's response, but he was profoundly disappointed with Chloe's. He was convinced she didn't want to embarrass him by saying how off the wall he sounded.

He doesn't even seem to notice that his daughter is sobbing. Yet he's still "convinced" he knows what she's thinking and, based on that assumption, he is "profoundly disappointed" in her. I'm sure that comes across as comforting. What is it with these men?

"Mr. Williams," he said, standing and thrusting out his hand, "it's been a pleasure. The pastor I told you about in Illinois really has a handle on this stuff and knows much more than I do about the Antichrist and all. It might be worth a call if you want to know any more."

So thanks for the interview. Oh, and I almost forgot, the world is going to end in exactly 6 years, 357 days aaaaaand ... 13 hours. 'Bye now.

In these parting words, Rayford summarizes what he considers the key point of his hourlong speech. Here is the core of his message -- of the authors' message -- of his and their version of the "gospel": "The Antichrist and all."** Again, consider how strange this is in the best-selling "Christian novel" of the last two decades. Not, "Jesus and all," or "Jesus' return and all," or even "God's righteous wrath (and our righteous schadenfreude) and all." The Antichrist and all.

The central figure in this message is not Christ, but the Antichrist. It's fair to ask, then, if LaHaye and Jenkins' religion might not be more accurately called "Antichristianity." In their defense, however, we should note that the essential focus of their religion is not to celebrate or serve the Antichrist, but rather to oppose him. That would make their religion something more like "Anti-Antichrist-ianity." To their way of thinking, Anti-Antichristianity is pretty much the same thing as Christianity. That's not unreasonable, if the same semantic logic that makes "not unreasonable" mean the same thing as "reasonable" were to apply here. But opposing Christ's opposite doesn't make you Christian, and the enemy of God's enemy isn't necessarily God's friend.

Here, as usual, Left Behind presents an extreme example of a more widespread problem in American evangelicalism. Evangelicals these days don't stand for anything, they only stand against. And as it turns out, being against unrighteousness and being for righteousness aren't the same thing at all. This isn't merely a problem for evangelicals, either. Consider how rare it is nowadays to hear some say they're "pro-America" without meaning, by that, that they're anti- something (or everything) else.

The foursome moseyed to the lobby.

OK, yes, bonus points for use of the word "mosey."

"I'm going to say my good-nights," Hattie said. "I've got the earlier flight tomorrow." She thanked Rayford for dinner, whispered something to Chloe -- which seemed to get no response -- and thanked Buck for sticking her with the cabfare his hospitality that morning. "I may just call Mr. Carpathia one of these days," she said. ...

Chloe looked as if she wanted to follow Hattie to the elevators and yet wanted to say something to Buck as well. He was shocked when she said, "Give us a minute, will you, Daddy? I'll be right up."

The point of this exchange, for the authors, was to arrange a chance for Buck and Chloe to talk one-on-one. They seem not to have noticed that this put Rayford and Hattie together. Alone together. On a hotel elevator.

Buck and Chloe talk about their mutual admiration for her father:

"Your dad is a pretty impressive guy," he said.

"I know," she said. "Especially lately."

Lately her dad has been forcing her to tag along while he torments his former pseudo-mistress, but that's not what Chloe is referring to. She means she's starting to think her father might be right about "the Antichrist and all." Buck agrees. At this point a good-night kiss is pretty much out of the question. If you're a guy, standing awkwardly outside her door/elevator at the end of an evening together, then you should, as a rule, avoid the following topics: 1) her father; 2) weird religious theories; and especially 3) her father's weird religious theories.

"I just met you and I'm really gonna miss you," Chloe tells him. "If you get through Chicago, you have to call."

Buck has already, somewhat creepily, booked a ticket to Chicago in the seat next to hers on tomorrow's flight. He doesn't tell her about this here, opting instead to up the creepy factor:

"It's a promise," Buck said. "I can't say when, but let's just say sooner than you think."

The clock is ticking.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* I once got caught on the train making faces while reading Bryce Courtenay's desciption, in The Power of One, of Pastor Mulvery's "lightning on/off smile" with his "escape-attempting teeth." To explain myself to the amused couple across the row, I read them the passage and soon they were trying to smile like Pastor Mulvery too. The Power of One is very good, by the way. Skip the movie, read the book -- it's like a South African Huckleberry Finn.

** Makes me wish Sellar and Yeatman were still alive to write The Antichrist and All That, at the end of which history really would come to a .

Comments

[Mouse]

Woo-hoo, first poster. Anyway, I just want to compliment you on a well-done riffing. I can't wait until you get to the part with Nicky Simien's mind control whammy.

[Jesurgislac]

Left Behind Friday! Yay.

It comes across more as the working of salmonella through, perhaps, the chicken.

Oh. I have thunk of another Right Behind plot. It involves Buck and Rayford doing a lot of puking.

The common variable is Rayford. Spend an hour with this guy and you'll wind up sobbing uncontrollably or shivering through your sweat. Both of these have happened to me just from reading about him.

Bwah!

She thanked Rayford for dinner, whispered something to Chloe -- which seemed to get no response -- and thanked Buck for sticking her with the cabfare his hospitality that morning. "

Ooh. Okay, maybe the people who want Chloe/Hattie femslash have a point. Chloe looks like she wants to follow Hattie? Hm. What did they do together that afternoon?

[ericblair]

It's a lot easier to be anti-anti-X than pro-X (look at X=Bush, for example). It's even easier when you turn the anti-X part into a nice big fat strawman with a jaunty hat and bright shirt and start whaling into that bad boy.

Yes, extra bonus points for the use of the word "mosey" in a non-Western non-humerous situation.

[Mnemosyne]

Buck has already, somewhat creepily, booked a ticket to Chicago in the seat next to hers on tomorrow's flight. He doesn't tell her about this here, opting instead to up the creepy factor:

"It's a promise," Buck said. "I can't say when, but let's just say sooner than you think."

As a woman, let me say that if a guy I'd just met the night before suddenly showed up in the seat next to me on an airplane, I would not find it charming. At all. I'd probably ask the flight attendant to move my seat since the big flashing "STALKER!" siren would be going off in my head.

[carovee]

Did LaHaye and Jenkins really think that reporters never check back with their sources, or is this just another attempt at showing off their GIRAT? I was under the impression that checking with your sources, maybe even sending them your article to preview was fairly standard? Or is that only the case with government officials?

[twig]

So how to write something like an ephiphany? Something so profoundly personal and unspeakable and yet all-changing?

How to do it if you're a pulp writer, and not a rare and gifted poet?

Any technical tricks to writing the ineffible? Specificity of sensation? Dramatic shift to a completely disjointed thought? (Stephen King tends to do this from time to time and I think it works well.)

[Richard Hershberger]

"you tell two young people that the world is going to end in 6 years and 357 days and they're probably not going to want to take things slow."

or,

The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

One of the finest examples of the poetic genre of "we ain't gettin' any younger, baby, so let's get it on"

[Richard Hershberger]

"Did LaHaye and Jenkins really think that reporters never check back with their sources, or is this just another attempt at showing off their GIRAT?"

The idea of checking back with your sources is nearly as absurd as the idea of an author revising early drafts.

[MikhailBorg]

I took the Bronze in my senior year in the 100-meter mosey.

Have you noticed how rarely anyone in these books actually listens to what someone else is saying, without swiftly being distracted by their own thoughts? (I mean, I do this once in a while, but I'm not proud of it, and I'm trying to quit.)

All of these characters run around in their own little ego-centric shield buffer, as if no one else on Earth truly exists. Again, you could make the case that this is how RTCs believe non-RTCs behave, but that doesn't change the fact that we are supposed to sympathize with the main characters here, that they are supposed to show we heathens the Way.

But they don't, and can't... so we don't, and can't.

Really. I have fanfic from the 4th grade that had more believable characters than this, and believe me, that's damning with FAINT praise.

[Fraser]

Carovee, I'd never send an article unless it's some sort of advertorial (I've written those two), and I wouldn't call to verify quotes--that's just an invitation for someone to decide yes, they said that, but they really don't want to have it on the record. At some larger magazines or papers they have fact-checkers but they wouldn't send the whole article either (I'm not sure how they do work, we're too small to have one).
However, I would almost always say "If I have more questions, may I call you?" as Fred points out. SOP, because frequently something isn't clear or I think of a question I should have asked and didn't. And if I'd received a speech like Buck's and taken it seriously, I wouldn't have any qualms about telling him I'd give it some serious thought.
I do find it amusing that Rayford is not only one of those "scientific types" but apparently is fully versed in how modern journalism works. What a guy!

[jamoche]

Evangelicals these days don't stand for anything, they only stand against.

Yesterday at lunch one of my co-workers was complaining about one of the presidential candidates, who is apparently anti-war, anti-tax, anti-all sorts of things, but not, as far as my co-worker could tell, pro-anything.

Also, seconding twig's request for how to do an effective epiphany, because I need to write one!

[Geds]

Also, seconding twig's request for how to do an effective epiphany, because I need to write one!

It's best to fade to black.

Or white. Whichever one works better. I think fading to black is what happens before a sex scene, what with the lights and all...

[Carl Rennie]

...he never allowed people he interviewed to see their quotes in advance. He trusted his tape recorder and his memory, and he had never been accused of misquoting.

Really? An investigative reporter -- used to dealing with sensitive topics, extremely egotistical people of immense power talking about things that could cause them personal harm, and he's never been accused of misquoting? Not so much as an "it was taken out of context"?

If the people he interviews are always 100% satisfied with the way they come across in his articles, they can't be very good. I don't think even People magazine has that kind of record.

[patter]

salmonella through, perhaps, the chicken

Chloe also had the chicken

Chicken?! Rayfie spent all that money on bribing a waiter, and NOW we find out he took 'em to friggin' Colonel Sanders'? What kind of a guy is this????

Spend an hour with this guy and you'll wind up sobbing uncontrollably or shivering through your sweat.

Or puking your guts out.

She thanked Rayford for dinner

Apparently having chosen the salad bar.

[Jos]

Apparently Chloe also had the chicken.

No, no, I think Chloe has finally been forced by circumstances to let go of the fantasy that her 'Daddy' is still in denial about the Event and has, instead, snapped. The realisation that her father really has to be taken in by a mental institution could not have been an easy one.

Chloe's admission to Buck that Ray's become very 'impressive' lately only confirms this. Of course... she's probably not talking about the same kind of impressiveness that Buck's talking about.

Finally, Chloe's sudden and otherwise inexplicable attachment to Hattie makes a lot more sense in this light as well. She's the only other sane one around, after all.

[Raka]

"the same semantic logic that makes "not unreasonable" mean the same thing as "reasonable"..."

But "not unreasonable" doesn't mean the same thing as "reasonable". Absence of a negative is NOT the same as presence of a positive. In use, "not unreasonable" is a much weaker endorsement than "reasonable".

Of course, this only strengthens your characterization of L+H's creed as Anti-antichristianity.

[Tonio]

The foursome moseyed to the lobby.

I assume Buck and Rayford were wearing Stetsons, chaps, and spurs with six-shooters at the ready. Rayford looks around with steely eyes, spits tobacco on the floor and growls, "If that lily-livered Carpathia varmint reaches for his gun, he'll be pushing up dasies!"

Surely he knew that reporters never checked back with their sources.

One doesn't have to be a journalist to see through that nonsense. Just read "All the President's Men."

[Donalbain]

But opposing Christ's opposite doesn't make you Christian, and the enemy of God's enemy isn't necessarily God's friend.

Exactly as I said in a previous thread. If the Left Behind world came to pass, I would fight against both the God of that ilk and the Antichrist.

[mmack]

Buck did not trust himself to respond with coherence. He still had chills, yet he felt sticky with sweat. What was happening to him?

Hmmm, Chills, sweat, incoherent babbling, along with

his pulse racing, looking neither right nor left. He could not move. He was certain the women could hear his crashing heart.

We look at the checklist:

The most common heart attack signs and symptoms are:

Chest discomfort or pain—uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain in the center of the chest that can be mild or strong. This discomfort or pain lasts more than a few minutes or goes away and comes back.

Upper body discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw, or stomach.

Shortness of breath may occur with or before chest discomfort.

Other signs include nausea (feeling sick to your stomach), vomiting, lightheadedness or fainting, or breaking out in a cold sweat.

My Diagnosis: It's a grabber. Screw seven years, Buck may not have seven minutes.

[Imagines Buck staggering around like Fred Sanford: "Chloe! This is it honey, it's the big one!"]

[Raka]

jamoche: Also, seconding twig's request for how to do an effective epiphany, because I need to write one!

"Bill was having no epiphanies. Then he stopped."

[Kenneth R. Morefield]

A reporter who has never been accused of misquoting???

Not a reporter who has never been guilty of it, but accused of it?

Buck is supposed to interview people from the inner sanctums of misinformation--people who regularly lie, spin, and change their mind, and he has never had a source claim that he (or she) was misquoted?

Of course...I guess to misquote somone you have to not only interview him but eventually, you know, file a story.

[Raka]

"The dictionary on Bill's desk defined 'epiphany' as 'a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience', which pretty much described what Bill had experienced."

[mmack]

I assume Buck and Rayford were wearing Stetsons, chaps, and spurs with six-shooters at the ready. Rayford looks around with steely eyes, spits tobacco on the floor and growls, "If that lily-livered Carpathia varmint reaches for his gun, he'll be pushing up dasies!"

Tonio, think of Ray as The Man with No Name from A Fistful of Dollars.

[Tonio]

My Diagnosis: It's a grabber. Screw seven years, Buck may not have seven minutes.

Could he have been going into diabetic shock?

[Abelardus]

The idea of checking back with your sources is nearly as absurd as the idea of an author revising early drafts.

WIN! Dick gets the win!

[Vermic]

I think Buck's reaction to Rayford's talk is understandable. After all, John Wesley's God is a very different beast from the God of Left Behind. There's not a great deal in L&J's toxic doctrine to warm the heart. Imagine that, like Buck, you've just spent an hour listening to the Gospel According to Tim and Jerry. It wouldn't be a magical experience at all. You should feel sick and clammy after hearing it. It ought to feel like the spiritual equivalent of tainted chicken. And when it's done, you'd want to wrap things up and get the hell out of there as quick as you could.

I doubt L&J intended any of this, but as a meta-Buck reaction, it makes sense.

[lou]

Another question: he never uses a notebook? As a former reporter, I never used a tape recorder unless I was covering something court-related or legally touchy. In fact, a lot of states (and probably countries) have differing laws on the use of tape recorders, so a true GIRAT would have probably given up the tool a long time ago. It wouldn't be worth the trouble remembering to ask the source -- while the recorder is going -- permission to record them. Not to mention pretty awkward.

PS I love meta Hattie!

[paulf]

I've been a journalist for 24 years, and I've never done an interview with my wife or kids present.
None of what this guy does even remotely resembles anything a journalist does.

And why would even a local newspaper care about an airplane pilot's theory about the end of time or the disappearances? Everybody in the world would have a theory, for one to make it into print it would have to come from someone with some expertise on the subject at hand.

And given the best-selling end-times books that have proliferated in America for dercades, why would the repture be a surprise to anybody? "Oh, shit, Hal Lindsey was right!" everyone would say. Which is proof for certain that the rapture is not going to happen, now or anytime in the next billion years.

[mmack]

Could he have been going into diabetic shock?

Does his Gregory House impersonation for Tonio

"It could be sarcoydosis. Better run some tests to be sure."

Pops a Vicodin, hobbles out of comments with his cane.

:^)

[Raka]

Scott: Foreshadowing the wedding night..... :-)

Wait. That was... pleasant. Is this some New Scott, or did someone finally tie down our Classic Scott and forcibly medicate him?

[LM]

Buck was putting his equipment away when he noticed Chloe was crying, tears streaming down her face.

Hattie was a bit too aggressive with the strap-on.

[mike timonin]

Mikhail said: Have you noticed how rarely anyone in these books actually listens to what someone else is saying, without swiftly being distracted by their own thoughts? (I mean, I do this once in a while, but I'm not proud of it, and I'm trying to quit.)

I do this too, but it's not a big deal. You know, it's not all the time, just sometimes. When other people around me are doing it too. Oh, or when I've been drinking. I don't have to do it, I could quit anytime I want.

[Dorothy]

Scott... Wins?

[Jack Grey]

How to write an epiphany?

Speaking a purely amateur writer, I can think of two approaches. One is you write the experience in intense detail -- including the weirdness, the idiosyncrasy, all the personal and unspeakable bits -- and pray you've developed your character well enough that those things make sense to your audience. (The example that leaps into my mind is a scene in Barbara Hambly's _Time of the Dark_, which in't actually a religious conversion; it's a new wizard being prodded into the realization that he actually *can* do magic. Similar vibe, though.)

Another approach is to have the conversion happen 'offfstage' in some fashion. Our host mentions a scene in the Chronicles of Narnia (unfortunately, I can't recall the details), in which one of the characters stands on the hillside talking to Aslan for half an hour, and comes back reformed. The details of the experience are left to the reader's imagination.

Hope that helps.

~Jack

[Baeraad]

"If you've ever had any such glimpse -- any moment of grace, or clarity, or of the sudden onrush of overwhelming beauty, insight or love then you know what Wesley's talking about."

You know, I never get epiphanies like that? When I have a moment of sudden understanding and clarity, it's usually about how everything is actually much worse than I used to think. After one of those, I tend to feel sort of calm and peaceful, because at least now I know (or think I know) the truth, and that's better than uncertainty. But I don't think I've ever had a heart-warming one.

... wonderful. I'm getting defective epiphanies.

[Tonio]

Tonio, think of Ray as The Man with No Name from A Fistful of Dollars.

We've discussed homoerotic subtext in other LB entries. Is there a word for the "heteroerotic" subject in this photo?

[MOJoe]

Buck did not trust himself to respond with coherence. He still had chills, yet he felt sticky with sweat. What was happening to him? He managed a whisper, "I want to thank you for your time, and for dinner," he said.

"You'll call me, won't you?" he implored, trying not to show how reluctant he was to let go of Rayford's hand. "Please. Just to say 'hi'?" He knew he sounded desperate. Trying not to touch his equipment, he backed out of the room, nearly swooning with the urge to blow Rayford a good-bye kiss.

Dear Gussie, but I do love LB Fridays! There's something about really crappy writing that brings out the Inner Bulwer-Lytton in me!

[Thalia]

Note, Scyllacat now changing to Thalia, in the name of comedies and happy endings, rather than, ya know, flailing around and killing folks in a rage.

I'd probably ask the flight attendant to move my seat since the big flashing "STALKER!" siren would be going off in my head.

Posted by: Mnemosyne | Jan 11, 2008 at 02:50 PM

I keep flipping this over in my head. I mean, we are talking about the WBEW, and therefore the fact that we can look at Chloe as the intended victim of a creepy stalker, well, we can be sure that's NOT what they meant, but what DID they mean? Well, I suppose they meant it to be romantic. Which, in one sense, fits, if you subscribe to the man-dominated worldview of LaJenkins. The man makes the plans and pops out with the surprises for the clueless chick, and this makes her happy, right? The problem, as I see it, is that they don't seem to know anything about women. For it to be romantic to show up on her plane (in the seat next to her) the day after he meets her, not only do we really need a sense of urgency (that Fred so aptly points out is being hoarded by that prophecy miser Steele), but we need a sense that Chloe is really falling HARD for Buck, and we don't have a sense that she is holding back (what with the crying and all) and neither is she gushing and giddy...

OMG, does that sentence go on and on... I've been listening to doctors all day, yup.

Did LaHaye and Jenkins really think that reporters never check back with their sources, or is this just another attempt at showing off their GIRAT? I was under the impression that checking with your sources, maybe even sending them your article to preview was fairly standard? Or is that only the case with government officials?

Posted by: carovee | Jan 11, 2008 at 02:55 PM

Seconding what EVERYONE said on reporters and sources. Yes, leave the door open to check back if YOU think you've got something wrong. Never give THEM carte blanche to decide to change what they've ACTUALLY said. (Did that once, what a damned mess.) Tape record people if you think they're going to be touchy later, but most of the time, don't bother.

Buck is supposed to interview people from the inner sanctums of misinformation--people who regularly lie, spin, and change their mind, and he has never had a source claim that he (or she) was misquoted?

Of course...I guess to misquote somone you have to not only interview him but eventually, you know, file a story.

Posted by: Kenneth R. Morefield | Jan 11, 2008 at 03:29 PM

Indeed, I was totally going there, and you beat me to the punchline.

I doubt L&J intended any of this, but as a meta-Buck reaction, it makes sense.

Posted by: Vermic | Jan 11, 2008 at 03:36 PM

Oooh, now I'm going to look for glimpses of the meta-Buck. I think you've got something there.

[Spalanzani]

With apologies to Jack Handey:

In all his years as an investigative journalist, Buck Williams had never been accused by those he interviewed as having misquoted them. In fact, the strange thing was that Buck had never gotten any feedback on any of the articles he ever wrote. He tried not to worry about this, and just do the best job he could. It wasn’t until years later that he realized he hadn’t really been a journalist at all, just some crazy stalker guy.

[chaos_engineer]

And why would even a local newspaper care about an airplane pilot's theory about the end of time or the disappearances?

Buck explained that a while back: "I'm doing a cover story on the theories behind what happened, and it would be good to get your perspective as a professional and as someone who was right in the middle of the turmoil when it happened."

The tricky bit is parsing "the middle of the turmoil". If every child in the world vanished, then the turmoil didn't have a middle. So we have to read it as "the middle of the turmoil in Chapter 1". As a character in the book, Buck doubtlessly reads it in his spare time.

Ray was the highest-ranking professional who was on-the-job in the middle of the turmoil. (I guess that's still kind of a weak reason for doing an interview. A more realistic reason would be: "It would be good to get your perspective as the book's other main point-of-view character.")

[Ken]

Buck did not trust himself to respond with coherence. He still had chills, yet he felt sticky with sweat. What was happening to him? He managed a whisper, "I want to thank you for your time, and for dinner," he said. -- Jerry "Buck" Jenkins, Greatest Christian Apocalyptic Novelist of All Time

Shaking (chills) and Whispering "...thank you...for dinner"? I'm straight and my Yaoi/Slash sense started tingling at that one, with strong Gaydar pings.

JENKINS! FANBOYS ARE GONNA SLASHFIC YOUR STUFF ANYWAY! WHY DO YOU MAKE IT SO EASY FOR THEM?

Again, consider how strange this is in the best-selling "Christian novel" of the last two decades. Not, "Jesus and all," or "Jesus' return and all," or even "God's righteous wrath (and our righteous schadenfreude) and all." The Antichrist and all.

"A lot of Christians are more interested in The Antichrist than they are in Christ." -- J Vernon Magee

The central figure in this message is not Christ, but the Antichrist. It's fair to ask, then, if LaHaye and Jenkins' religion might not be more accurately called "Antichristianity."

Hee hee hee...

So how to write something like an ephiphany? Something so profoundly personal and unspeakable and yet all-changing?

How to do it if you're a pulp writer, and not a rare and gifted poet? -- Twig

One of the REAL Thirties pulp writers could do a better job; my favorite candidate to rewrite LB is Norvell Page, main writer for The Spider, most over-the-top pulp crimefighter of the time. Pulp writing has a larger-than-life fast-paced action to it, a good match for St John's over-the-top imagery in his Apocalypse.

But this ISN'T pulp writing. It's bad hackwork that wouldn't even make it into Spicy and/or Gun Molls, let alone one of the first-string pulps like The Spider, The Shadow, G-8 and His Battle Aces, Operator 5...

I've been a journalist for 24 years, and I've never done an interview with my wife or kids present.

None of what this guy does even remotely resembles anything a journalist does. -- PaulF

No, it resembles what hack writer Jenkins (in his self-insertion fantasies) THINKS a journalist does. What he fantasizes himself doing if only HE were the Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time.

Everybody: This is BAD writing. Brain-bleach bad. Furry Fanboy bad. Women in Refrigerators BAD. Canonical Spiderman Peter Parker/J Jonah Jameson slashfic BAD.

[Jesurgislac]

When I read C.S.Lewis's autobiography, Surprised by Joy, I was myself surprised by his vivid and accurate description, in an early chapter, of a sensation as of sudden brightness inside - it's not quite like that, but when I read Lewis's description of his experience, I understood that it was the same as what I sometimes felt. (Peter Dickinson describes it too, FWIW, in The Blue Hawk.) I presume that what happens is that there is some momentary and pleasant balance in my hormones or my brain chemistry: anyway, it is a distinct and probably measureable event. (I wish that I could find out what my brain is doing in the moments when it happens. It's like doing some kind of brain work very well, but it's not attached to anything.)

But it is the hardest thing in the world to describe, because - like very great pain - when it's not there, it's hard to remember exactly what it was really like.

If you are religiously inclined, you can of course decscribe such experiences as spiritual, or from God. Lewis certainly did. As an atheist, I just think it's kind of neat that once in a while everything comes into balance and I feel extremely good about everything.

Anyway. I think that's an epiphany. The mental state of Hannibal Smith beaming "I love it when a plan comes together!" is probably also an epiphany.

[mcc]

"Buck did not trust himself to respond with coherence. He still had chills, yet he felt sticky with sweat. What was happening to him? He managed a whisper, "I want to thank you for your time, and for dinner," he said."

With scenes like the one above, I find myself mentally re-enacting them. Try it yourself here. Does Buck's "whisper" make any sense?

I... yes. I find myself very easily and immediately able to mentally re-enact the quoted passage there. Unfortunately I find myself doing so by jumping to the conclusion that Buck was not in fact listening to a word Rayford said and that this is to be read from a passage of one of our LB slashfics. Imagine Buck's voice wavering just a little as he whispers, and his exact state of mind at that moment becomes very clear.

[Keith]

"the machine" makes it sound as if Buck is the albino from The Princess Bride and he's carting around Count Rugen's Life Sucking Water wheel device.

Of course, if I had just sat through an hourlong rant by a sweaty guy talking a lot of nonsense about Biblical Prophecy, perhaps I might want The Machine handy after all.

"You've just sucked one hour of my life away. I want it back!"

[jamoche]

One is you write the experience in intense detail -- including the weirdness, the idiosyncrasy, all the personal and unspeakable bits -- and pray you've developed your character well enough that those things make sense to your audience.

Oh, the character is well developed - I'm taking over a character in a long-running RPG who, on the surface, is a puritanical homophobe. Actually he's deeply conflicted and in denial sexually, which is why the character is salvageable - he's about to realise that he's run off everyone he loves, and the reason nobody (other than his thankfully-dead mother, who really was an unpleasant character) has the same beliefs about God and sex as he does is because his instincts really are right and what he was taught is wrong. He's very much a boolean thinker, so actually the first thing he's going to do is snap under the pressure.

Unfortunately I had the "everything my (racist, sexist, and generally intolerant) dad says is probably wrong" epiphany so long ago I don't really remember it.

[Vermic]

@Geds: It's best to fade to black.

Or white. Whichever one works better. I think fading to black is what happens before a sex scene, what with the lights and all...

No, for a sex scene, what you're going to want is a dissolve. The leads kiss; the saxophone wails; then the scene blurs, and you go to the body doubles groping each other for eight minutes on an artfully lit fourposter bed.

Alternatively, if it's before 1960, you dissolve to a train racing into a tunnel.

[Hibryd]

If she was crying because she had been moved by her father's sincerity and earnestness, it was no surprise.

We're being *told* that someone's speech was so moving and mindblowing that it can reduce a woman to tears and shake a man (who once had nuclear missiles explode over his head) to the core, but we don't *hear* it. As bad as it is, I guess Jenkins attempting to write something he can't (a moving speech, or at least hints of one) would have been even worse. Do I have to respect him for knowing his limits?

And why would even a local newspaper care about an airplane pilot's theory about the end of time or the disappearances? Everybody in the world would have a theory, for one to make it into print it would have to come from someone with some expertise on the subject at hand.

Actually, Buck works for that universe's equivalent of Newsweek. Which makes it even worse. And yeah, his lack of actual interview subjects is infuriating. I would expect that if something like that were to happen in this universe you'd have a bevy of researchers and scientists across the country who would not have slept or left their labs since the disappearance.

[Keith]

"the machine" makes it sound as if Buck is the albino from The Princess Bride and he's carting around Count Rugen's Life Sucking Water wheel device.

Of course, if I had just sat through an hourlong rant by a sweaty guy talking a lot of nonsense about Biblical Prophecy, perhaps I might want The Machine handy after all.

"You've just sucked one hour of my life away. I want it back!"

[mmack]

"the machine" makes it sound as if Buck is the albino from The Princess Bride and he's carting around Count Rugen's Life Sucking Water wheel device.

Of course, if I had just sat through an hourlong rant by a sweaty guy talking a lot of nonsense about Biblical Prophecy, perhaps I might want The Machine handy after all.

"Do you hear that Keith? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when the six-fingered man killed my father. After reading Left Behind Fred Clark makes it now."

[Drak Pope]

If the people he interviews are always 100% satisfied with the way they come across in his articles, they can't be very good. I don't think even People magazine has that kind of record.

It's easy if you remember that Buck doesn't actually write articles. He conducts interviews and flies all over the world to investigate Pulitzer Prize-worthy international events, but he never writes a thing about any of them. It's impossible for someone to dislike their portrayal in one of his articles if he never writes any.

I mean, we are talking about the WBEW, and therefore the fact that we can look at Chloe as the intended victim of a creepy stalker

The problem is that since Chloe is so dull and unlikable that it's hard for me to feel happy or worried for her. She will marry Buck and raise a whole bunch of dull kids with him, and I'm not happy for her.