An Unexpected Adventure

I took a B.A. Degree in Latin and English Literature at Luther College in1966. The next year I went to Oxford, England, as a nanny, with the chance to attend lectures in literature at the colleges. I didn’t know at the time how much the study of literature had been influenced by two traditions which were fought out in the 1930’s at the universities at Oxford and at Cambridge. Looking back, I see clearly that the struggle was still being played out when I got there. And of course I had a point of view.

At Oxford, colleges taught language and literature, with an emphasis on language. The people who influenced this teaching included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and their fellows. For them language was more than human speech. It claimed a divine origin and was the means by which God created the cosmos. For Owen Barfield, “Language was the fossil record of the history of the evolution of human consciousness.” For Tolkien, it was “a fallen human instrument and a precious divine gift; a supreme art, and as Word, a name for God.”

At Oxford, most lectures were in early English and its origins. The professors felt you didn’t need a tutor to read contemporary literature! As I saw myself a future writer, however, I gravitated to the one professor, Francis Warner at the recently-built St. Catherine's College, who lectured in 20th Century literature. How did he get there? I look back and find that, of course, he had come from Cambridge!

At Cambridge, a more science-dominated institution, a revolution had been brewing. I.A. Richards and F.R. Leavis felt that “English studies must be cut free from the classical scholarly tradition in every respect.” They developed what they called “New Criticism,” a formal technique in which the text itself was studied carefully without special consideration of its historical context or cultural influence. The two approaches to literature, from Oxford and Cambridge, were in underlying agreement, but bitter battles were fought. Looking back, I now see that the canon I was taught came straight out of Cambridge.

All of this was dramatized for me recently in The Fellowship - The Literary Lives of the Inklings, by Philip and Carol Zaleski. This book reminded me of how I had turned up my silly little nose at the “fantasy literature” of the Inklings, despite much involvement in it in my family. My mother was a member of the C.S. Lewis Society and many of my cousins read and talked about him. I read The Hobbit by Tolkien early, but never followed up with The Lord of the Rings, despite thorough reading of it by my siblings. As a result of the Zaleskis’ book, however, and also re-thinking of my own, I am now immersed in close reading of Tolkien’s masterwork.

When I was younger, the self-conscious exploration of modern literature was deeply interesting to me. I read some James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence E.M. Forster, and loved Virginia Woolf without reservation. The precision with which the self was described, the depths plumbed, the generosity of these authors with their lives appealed to my own determined self-making. By this time, however, my self made and accepted, I am considerably less interested in the personal idiosyncrasies in which this strain of literature continues to obsess. Perhaps the universal is getting lost in the process.

At any rate, my current crusade is for awareness of and attention to the value of everyday life, especially life lived together with our families and friends. Tolkien’s work speaks amply to this. For him, according to the Zaleskis, fantasy was a higher form of art, an elvish craft. Fairy tales were a door opening on divine truth. But he lived in an Oxford which was not much larger than a village. He could walk or bicycle from his home to the college. He could meet with his friends at a pub to drink, smoke a pipe and talk about stories in the center of town. Middle-earth was for him simply objective reality. Tolkien was a realist. He said, “I am in fact a Hobbit,” that his work “was written in my life’s blood.”

In my family, the unique combination of John Kronlokken and Florence Frost has become known as “ Kronlokken-ness” and it bears a great resemblance to Tolkien’s hobbits. Like hobbits, Kronlokkens are modest and generous, like gardens and trees, and are capable of courage when necessary. They tend to hide their light under a bushel and, I happen to know, some of them much prefer being barefoot! In the mid-80’s I published a family newspaper called The Intercoastal Hobbit. Some of the stories related in it made their way into the series, So Are You to My Thoughts.

The Lord of the Rings shows that it is only the truly humble who can be trusted with power. It is the homely goodness of the hobbits, the everyday wisdom of their shire, their voluntary suffering quest which saves the world from the horrors of a wielder of absolute power. Perhaps I cannot claim so much for Kronlokkens, my many siblings, their children and children’s children. But it is clear to me that they are the salt of the earth.

Recent Developments

A couple of interesting developments at the end of the year: For one thing, Luther College bookstore requested the remaining books in the series, when they learned that I had completed it. For a self-published author to get their books onto a bookstore shelf is not easy (though I am, of course, an alumna), so I requested a photo. Here it is, appropriate to the times.

In addition, The Pastor’s Kids is getting an audio version! Susie Fehr, who lives in Manitoba, only four hours north of where the book takes place in North Dakota, is finishing up the reading as I write. We found each other through acx.com, an exchange set up by (you guessed it) Amazon to help authors and audio producers find each other. It will be available on Audible, iTunes and Amazon when she finishes. This is thrilling. I am by this time an audiobook devotee and I know many other people are as well. I will keep you posted on this!

Novels to Live In

Having completed my series So Are You to My Thoughts, and just now having re-read the series from beginning to end, I have some thoughts on the kind of work it is. First and foremost, I believe they are novels to live in. It might not even matter if you begin in the middle of the series, and later go back to the beginning. You are going to find the characters consistent, like people you might meet and then wonder about. “How did Line and Stephen meet?” you ask. “Why does Paul move to Alaska?” or “Why does Marty make poor choices?” In this case, you would be rewarded. Their stories are there for all to see.

In addition, the novels exemplify what I think of as my manifesto “against brilliance.” I have nothing against erudition, except when it is a masquerade, when there are no clothes under the king’s ermine robe. One does not need to go to an ivy league or big eight university to get an excellent education. Education is more in one’s own hands. Art doesn’t need to be larded with obfuscation and prizes. It needs to be meaningful. One doesn’t need to learn code, finance or go to law school to find good work. Work in the service of humans is everywhere. Glitz, glamour and fame are not how we should measure our success. But in simpler ways, by the trust others have in us and our fidelity to the lives and natures we have been given. By our ability to be happy. And our country does not need to be the biggest cheese in the world, saving other countries from themselves. Rather, we need to get back to our own basics, spending money on education, health care and justice rather than on armaments at every level.

None of us are perfect. Certainly my characters are not. But their stories leave space for the reader to live among them. They show the characters finding practices that fill them with delight and wonder: Paul finding a way to live with loss in the heart of the country he loves most; Marty finally learning to appreciate the beauty within herself and making a home for a family which expresses it; Line having to tame her fierce maternal energy into a watchful tolerance.

And they are stars, each with an epic story of their own movement from a fixed childhood firmament into an expanding universe. Their own dinner table conversations are thrilling, their houses and gardens are beautiful and they are proud of the lives they lead.

The great anthropologist and poet Frederick Turner, in Beauty, The Value of Values, published in 1991 imagines that the mid- 21^st century will be surprising to us, should we arrive there all of a sudden: We would be “most surprised not by the expected innovations but by the way that all of human cultural and biological history will have become part of the landscape; by how magically corny, how shamefully old-fashioned, how primate-like and tribal we will be among the almost invisible and intangible miracles of our technology; by how slow and quiet everything will be, how improvised, how richly ornamented; how closely we will live with the animals and plants, how much in the open air; how gorgeously and formally and anachronistically clothed we will be, how morally earnest and at the same time how lighthearted, how accepting of shame and tragedy; how much also as we lived in the great pedestrian cities of the civilized past.”

I loved this vision of the future, so quiet and peaceful. But we have far to go in that direction! Like Turner, I have written books which state my own values, as over against those around me. Technology assists me to assert them, whether anyone agrees or not. But one thing I can assure you. The writer is dressed plainly, in cotton t-shirt, ragged jeans and tevas on a warm day near the center of Los Angeles.

New Book Network Podcast

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. It is a good way to find out what it happening in literary culture when bookstores are closed and you can’t get out as much. So, I happened on the New Book Network coming out of Chicago, and in particular, G.P. Gottlieb, who reports on new literature. I contacted her and she charmingly agreed to interview me, regarding So Are You to My Thoughts, for the network.

So, in the middle of last month, Don hauled out his best Schoeps microphone and set up a little studio for me. Galit (Gottlieb) invited me to the Zencastr software and we recorded the interview! She put it together, it was edited for sound levels and so on, and it is now out. You can listen to the interview by clicking the link below.

So Are You to My Thoughts is the last of a series of books, all of which I could not expect Galit to read! She did read this last one, however, and asked penetrating, interesting question about it, which allowed me to say things I wanted to and a few I didn’t need to reveal. You can hear me flailing about for a thought. That kind of thing where your brain is going in several directions and you are quickly trying to determine which! Galit is a writer herself, writing mysteries with recipes in them, which she invites us all to test! You can hear the life and interests we share in our conversation. Minnesota, Illinois, California. Food and wine, politics and spiritual practices.

I was deeply grateful for the pleasure of being on her show!

https://newbooksnetwork.com/connie-kronlokken-so-are-you-to-my-thoughts-lightly-held-books-2020/

An End and a Beginning

So Are You to My Thoughts, the seventh and final book in my series about Line, Marty and Paul Mikkelson, is now published and will soon be available as both a paperback and a Kindle file from Amazon.com. I am very happy to have brought this project, which took more than ten years, to an end!

As fiction, the story is framed through my own lens. This can’t be helped, though my characters get equal attention, and, I hope, each has their own perspective. All, however, live real lives. There are no princesses or goddesses, dystopic futures or dark secrets which come back to haunt everyone. In this blog I have elucidated my positions, though in the fiction they are simply embodied.

The beginning means that I must now begin to talk about the books more! At least I think I will. One never knows. The books have nothing to say about our current crisis around COVID-19, a world-wide pause which has caught us all unaware. But someday the period between 1950 and 2010, when the fictive lives of my characters ends, may be interesting to people. Polio, which Paul has in the mid 1950’s, was certainly a frightening epidemic at the time.

So this is just an announcement. Hail and farewell. I will continue to keep this blog posted of any significant reviews or other happenings around the series. And thank you for your attention!

Grateful

Among the many other gifts of the season, I’m grateful I have been able to finish the first draft of my novel So Are You to My Thoughts. It’s the final book in the series I have been writing for the past ten years. There is a lot of work to do before the novel is published, as it has been written sporadically and needs pulling together. But, there is no getting around it. It’s done.

In this culminating novel, Line’s kids are all thriving. She and Stephen continue to reside in Santa Cruz with Poppa, as the kids move into their own lives. It is easier for Line to communicate with them, however, as technology has improved. In her 60’s, Line begins to feel something is wrong. Eventually she is diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis which at first horrifies her. She gradually becomes used to her new condition, with Stephen stepping in to help.

For Paul, the book begins with the loss of Marie. He finds a place for himself, however, when Ellie and Bruce decide they can rebuild the family’s lake cabin. It will become a year-round home, with Paul in residence as manager. The building process is exciting and Paul is thrilled to find himself deep in northern Minnesota where he always wanted to be. Marie’s daughter and her children remain his family.

Marty’s single life is completely disrupted when she moves in with Doug at the Boulder Creek ranch on the mountain above Santa Cruz. She becomes the household anchor for the family, since Doug works hard and the kids are all in school. As a father, Doug is full of ideas about what he wants for his kids. Marty helps implement them. During some of the kids’ high school years, the family moves in to Santa Cruz to be closer to activities. By the end of the book, the kids have their eyes on college. Marty and Doug are amazed at how quickly they grew up.

Lewis Hyde in The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, says “For the slow labor of realizing a potential gift the artist must retreat to those Bohemias, halfway between the slums and the library, where life is not counted by the clock and where the talented may be sure they will be ignored until that time, if it ever comes, when their gifts are viable enough to be set free and survive in the world.” I have come to that place, indeed, when we see whether the books are viable enough to survive in the modern world.

This is not to say that I am sure the books qualify as “art.” Art, with a capital A, is a romantic idea, often supported by a lot of hype, to which I don’t subscribe. All of us bring art to our lives, and occasionally try to embody in words or music or the other arts the spirit we cannot contain, that we feel we must share.

I hoped the books would show, in one group of siblings, born into a particular place and time, how one grows into a self and then sets out to share that self with a larger family. It is always an adventure, an odyssey through uncharted waters. But, as with most adventurers, home, and the making of a home, is the goal. I have been blessed every day with ideas and scenes I call up from memory or create from research, often a combination of the two.

The project could not have been brought to this point without the specific help of three people: My sister Naomi has read each chapter as it was written with an eye to its emotional continuity and the awkward word or phrase. My brother David has especially commented on the Paul chapters. And Don Starnes has brought his visual and technical gifts to the production of the covers and the website. For all of this help, and for the web of life reflected in the books, I am deeply grateful.

Tipping My Hand

Readers of this blog will have noticed common themes running through its posts. As I near the end of the first draft of my final book, So Are You to My Thoughts, I think often of the value system embodied in the characters. I haven’t tried to make it explicit, as it is indeed meant to be reflected in their actions and thoughts. Their human natures compel their actions, while their feelings and thoughts make meaning of them.

In our study of tai chi, the Taoist way and its principles, we were taught an exercise between two people in which we first “listened” with our bodies, “surrendered” to the other person, “transformed” their energy as it came toward us, and finally “pushed.” It is a practice of balance within oneself, and harmony between people, which also results in positive accomplishment.

In my work, I’ve tried to show that there are ways of taking the material you grow up with and find in yourself and transforming it. Thus the freedom everyone in my generation fought for (“like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir”) does not have to be freedom from anything. It can be freedom to make homes, families and lives of which we are proud and which honor those we love.

Likewise, the self definition which many of us were so desperate about can be understood in terms not of self expression, but of service. Beyond the idea that only a few are called to become artists, documenting every last impulse, we can recognize that all of us are able to display the cardinal virtues of discernment, courage, temperance and fairness. Cultivation of these virtues enables us to live beside each other in harmony and peace.

A third major preoccupation of my generation was lifestyle, making new ways to live beyond the traditional furniture-ridden, unquestioned round of those who had gone before. Transforming this impulse to trash the past, we can educate ourselves to live with grace and taste, seeing these as elements of everything we do.

Goodness, truth, and beauty have long been the ideals of humanity. Keats saw in the Grecian urn that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” None of this triad exists without the other. I associate freedom with truth, as all paths must be open in order to find it. Beauty has within it the necessity for authenticity, as in nature, where nothing is anything but itself. Goodness too is hollow without the backbone of character. Victimhood has been the subject of art, and of people’s prurient interest, way too long. And people hardly believe they have a right to beauty, that they know what it is. We can turn our gaze back to these ideals.

In his book, The Culture of Hope: A New Birth of the Classical Spirit [1995], Frederick Turner says: “The greatest arts are, I believe, not those which cause a stir on museum walls or extend some ‘shocking’ modern or post-modern critical theory into yet another posture or attitude, but those arts which intensify ordinary human existence and fill it with meaning, that make a home into a place that recalls all our beautiful and tragic past, and points to futures that are as human as they are strange and adventurous.”

John Bayley pointed out, regarding Czeslaw Milosz, that he was beyond ideology, having lived through so much change and violence during the 20^th century. Milosz was “not after himself, but after that old European goal of cultivation and understanding, enlightenment and humanitas.” The U.S. too is growing up, forging a new culture not seen before from its indigenous peoples, its immigrants and its unique place on the globe. Humans evolve slowly, but culture is quick. We can do better than we have in recent years. Postmodernism, with its identity and power politics, is a dead end. We are over it. Time to look back and pick up the pieces.