dual personalities

Recently I bought the Criterion Collection DVD of The Furies (1950) for my collection and was pleased to find that a paperback of the novel by Niven Busch, upon which the movie is based, was included. (By the way, Barnes and Noble is having a 50% off sale on all Criterion Collection movies–quite a deal.)

This action-packed western novel, full of sound and fury, is just what I needed. It is well-written, fast-paced and the characters, although exaggerated, are believable (at least in a Freudian universe.) The author is also not pushing an agenda of any kind, which is refreshing these days.

Born in New York and educated at Princeton, Niven Busch worked for Time magazine and The New Yorker before moving to Hollywood in 1931. For the next 21 years he was a screenwriter at such studios as Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount and Universal. He also published 14 novels.

He was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay in 1937 for “In Old Chicago.” During his career, he wrote more than 20 screenplays including “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946), but he was most successful as a writer of westerns. Among his best-known films of the genre are “Pursued,” “The Westerner,” “Distant Drums” and “Man From the Alamo.” His 1944 novel, “Duel in the Sun,” was scorned by critics but was a huge success for David O. Selznick.

Now I’ll have to watch The Furies again, which I blogged about here.

In other news, today is the anniversary of Jonathan Edwards preaching his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” to “profound effect” at Enfield, Connecticut in 1741. He had previously preached it to his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts.

The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.

You can read it here.

Some make gods of their pleasures; some choose Mammon for their god; some make gods of their own supposed excellencies, or the outward advantages they have above their neighbors: some choose one thing for their god, and others another. But men can be happy in no other God but the God of Israel: he is the only fountain of happiness.

You might want to read this as well, since it sheds light on the fact that Edwards was not all doom and gloom. He was just very concerned about his flock and all those unconverted souls out there in Massachusetts.

Funnily enough, it is also the anniversary of William Jennings Bryan giving his famous “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic Convention in 1896. I was acquainted with this speech growing up, but I suppose it is no longer taught, except perhaps to homeschooled children. I knew that WJB had run unsuccessfully for president three times and could quote from memory “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” I suppose if WJB is remembered at all it is because of the Scopes Trial.

Now that I have time to do such things, I washed the doll clothes made by my Aunt Susanne which adorn the hand carved and painted doll she also made back in the 1970s.

This is a copy of an antique doll she had that had been in our family for many years. Those three sisters certainly were talented, weren’t they? Well, you know what they say: “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” (Proverbs 16:27) I seem to discern a theme here.

Anyway, let’s toast the forgotten Niven Busch, Jonathan Edwards, and William Jennings Bryan, and also talented artisans everywhere tonight. And remember what John Owen famously wrote: “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”

*Deut. 32:35