The Low-Tech World: Exploring Mormon Literature

Modern Mormon Men: Why You Should Check Out the Mormon Lit Blitz

2012-01-26T15:51:00.000-05:00

My latest post is up on Modern Mormon Men. It's a promotional piece about the Mormon Lit Blitz. I think you should read it.

So does Chuck Norris.

(Read it here: "The Mormon Lit Blitz, Or How to Make the Most of Four Minutes on the Internet")

Mitt Romney's Full Mormon Lit Blitz Entry Revealed...

2012-01-22T14:59:00.006-05:00

Photo Source: Associated Press

This weekend's South Carolina primaries were not good to Mitt Romney, who was came in a distant second to 1990s superstar Newt Gingrich. (You may or may not remember him from his masterful performance in 1999's Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace.)

After the results came in Saturday night, a crestfallen Romney told reporters that he didn't know what disappointed him more: losing in South Carolina or not seeing his short story show up as one of the Mormon Lit Blitz semifinalists.

Here at the Low-Tech World, we feel sorry for Romney and don't want him to get too downhearted--especially with the party nomination just within his grasp. In fact, as a gesture of goodwill, we've decided to publish his complete Mormon Lit Blitz entry, even though it didn't make the cut.

Enjoy.

The Iron Rod Returns

Darkness falls on the icy streets of Detroit. Atop of the towering Penobscot Building, the Iron Rod, alter ego of billionaire Mormon playboy Witt Stromney, looks down upon a makeshift tent city--the teeming headquarters of INHABIT DETROIT, the sinister brainwashed acolytes of his archenemy, THE SOCIALIST HOPE!!! Sharp Canadian winds from Lake St. Clair carry the sound of hippy music and late twentieth-century Marxist theory to his ears, reminding him of his days crusading in Massachusetts. His skin crawls beneath his spandex and Kevlar body armor.

Footsteps! He spins around and crouches for the attack.

“Easy partner,” a familiar voice croons from the shadows.

“Bluntsman?”

“It’s the Liahona, friend. At least while we’re on duty.”

“I thought you quit.”

“Been thinking about it. Maybe in a few weeks.”

“But…”

“I don’t want to disappoint my kids.”

The Iron Rod nods his approval. He has thought many times about hanging up the cape, calling it quits. Back in ’08, after a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Maverick, he had spent months sitting around the Tree of Life* in his underwear, eating green Jello, wondering how he had lost touch with the American People.

But that was before the Socialist Hope released his vile Hope Dope into the nation’s water supply. Before things got really bad.

“Just listen to them!” he says, hardly curbing the edge in his voice. “Thousands infected and no antidote.”

“I know, bro,” the Liahona says, joining him at the parapet. He has had a supersuit change since their last meeting. He had sported a green and gold spandex unitard then, but now he wears a black and gold get-up. It makes him look tougher, more like one of the New York City superheroes. His trademark arrow motif still remains, though. As does the ridiculous helmet shaped like something out of a Frieberg painting.

“Nice duds,” he says.

“I had them specially made during my stint in China,” says the Liahona.

“That’s right,” says the Iron Rod. “I forgot you had tasted the water.”

The Liahona’s muscles tense. His teeth grind to a sneer.

“What’s that supposed to mean, friend?”

“Nothing,” says the Iron Rod. “A cheap shot, maybe. I’m having a rough night.”

“Every night’s a rough night, pal.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. You know how it is.”

“I know.”

“It’s just...” The Iron Rod feels a catch in his throat, almost as if he is bearing his testimony on Fast Sunday. The Liahona places a hand on his shoulder and gives the joint a brotherly squeeze.

“Go ahead, Strom. Let it out.”

“It’s Super PAC, Jon,” the Iron Rod say, choking on his own words. “How could he turn on me like that? On us?”

“To be fair, you went after him first...”

The Iron Rod laughs bitterly. “That’s what he wants you to think. You don’t know the whole story. The lies. The threats.”

“Are you suggesting...some kind of conspiracy?”

“Heck yes I am!”

The Liahona stands there and listens to the night, the distant sirens and fog horns. “Things aren’t like they used to be, are they,” he says. Sadness hangs on his voice like a pair of sagging super-tights.

“He’s forced my hand. I have no choice but to play dirty.”

“You always have a choice, Strom. ‘Men are free to choose according to the flesh.’”

“And then this thing about me being a...”

“Vulture capitalist?”

“You know I’m not like that.”

“Sure, Strom, sure.”

“You can’t blame me for being successful.”

“That was always my dad’s philosophy.”

“And I can’t seem to shake that goofy name the papers gave me...”

“Plastic Man...”

“...as if I was some two-bit superhero from Dayton, Ohio.”

“At least people can still google your codename without something dirty popping up.”

“True.”

Somewhere, probably in the tent city below, someone has turned a few buckets and a plastic barrel into a drum set. The beat is strong, powerful. “Like Father,” the Iron Rod says quietly.

“Huh?”

“My father,” the Iron Rod says. “He never had to hide behind a mask.”

The Liahona says nothing.

“People knew him. The real him...”

“Strom...”

“...and respected him...”

“...you can’t...”

“If he were here today, he’d be so...so...”

The Liahona waits for him to finish his sentence, but the Iron Rod only groans and gestures absently into the night. He looks weighed down, as if his cape were made of lead instead of a boron-infused cotton-Nylon blend. At last, the Liahona says, “You ever hear of the Primal Father?”

“He works out of Houston, right?”

“No,” says the Liahona, “it’s something Freud came up with.”

“I don’t need your psycho-babble...”

“Hear me out,” says the Liahona. “Freud tells this story about a horde of cavemen brothers who get so jealous of their father that they kill him, eat him, and steal all his wives.”

The Iron Rod flinches at the mention of “wives.”

“Anyway,” the Liahona continues, “after all is said and done, the sons begin to feel guilty about what they did, and worry that their sons might do the same to them, so they start making rules against stuff like cannibalism and murder. And then...”

“I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.”

“Let me finish!” says the Liahona. “As soon as the rules are in place, the sons start talking up their old man, telling everyone what a great guy he was. You know, to make themselves feel better. Pretty soon, everyone’s worshipping the dead father. His shadow’s everywhere.”

“I still can’t...”

“For Freud, this story explains everything. Government. Religion. Civilization itself! We have 'em because a bunch of sons couldn’t get out from under daddy’s shadow.”

“So...”

“Freud places a lot of blame on these boys. Thinks they set a bad precedent.”

The Iron Rod looks out across the Detroit cityscape, a vanishing afterimage of what it had been in his father’s day.

“People knew him, Jon. Gosh! How they knew him!”

* His secret lair! See ish # 235!

Teaching Dispensation: Finding Teachable Stories

2012-01-21T11:20:00.003-05:00

My class “American Religious Landscapes” begins in less than two months, so I am in the process of re-reading Dispensation and selecting “teachable” stories. As I mentioned in aprevious post, I’m only going to spend a week (or three fifty-minute classes) in the anthology, so I’ll only be able to assign six or seven stories. I haven’t narrowed my selection down yet, but Levi Peterson’s “Brothers,” Larry Menlove’s “Who Brought Forth This Christmas Demon,” Darrell Spencer’s “Blood Work,” Angela Hallstrom’s “Thanksgiving,” and Douglas Thayer’s “Wolves” will probably make the cut. I had originally planned to include Orson Scott Card’s “Christmas at Helaman’s House,” but then I read the story, felt it went on thirteen pages longer than it needed to, and decided against it.[1]

I’ve selected these stories, and not others, for a few reasons. First, I think they reflect the interaction between religion and landscape, or religion and geography, that is the focus of my class. I like, for example, how the avenues in Salt Lake City are featured so prominently in “Blood Work,” how they evoke the sense of order that Mormonism tries to wrestle out of the chaotic natural world. I also like how “Wolves” is, in many ways, a story about leaving an insular religious landscape and facing the dangers lurking beyond its borders.

Second, I think the stories mentioned above are more teachable than other stories in the collection. Stephen Tuttle’s “The Weather Here” and Jack Harrell’s “Calling and Election,” for instance, may be excellent stories, but I get a headache thinking how I would even begin to teach them to students coming from largely Protestant and Catholic backgrounds. Both stories, it seems to me, rely so heavily on prior knowledge of Mormon theology that I worry students will either not “get” them or simply misread them. Of course, that sort of thing happens all the time in literature classes, and I know misreading often reveals great new insights, but I’d rather give students stories about concrete Mormon experiences they can grasp. Besides, who’s really up to the task of leading a classroom discussion of “Calling and Election” with thirty or so non-Mormon freshman?

I’m certainly not.

Then there’s a story like Lisa Torcasso Downing’s “Clothing Esther,” which is probably one of the best stories about Mormon women I have ever read.[2] On the surface, it’s a story that is fairly grounded in a common, concrete Mormon experience: the final dressing of a dead Mormon woman in her temple clothing. Beyond that, the story also touches on human relationships, particularly that between the mother and daughter-in-law, and some common Mormon themes: eternal marriage, family, sin, repentance, community, and mortality. Because other religions and belief systems have sacred clothing and share similar interests in things like marriage and sin, I don’t think “Clothing Esther” is an unteachable story. Spend thirty minutes on it with a group of non-Mormon freshmen who have just spent a week studying Mormon literature and I doubt you’ll lose anyone. Except maybe the kid who spends the entire class texting.

Still, as concrete as the story is, it’s also deeply embedded in the Mormon temple experience, which is concrete enough for temple-going Mormons, but something of a mystery to everybody else. Temple scenes, of course, are not unheard of in Mormon fiction. In the nineteenth century, for example, they were an essential (and deliberately terrifying) part of any anti-Mormon novel. But the temple rarely gets its due in Mormon fiction, either because it’s presented exposé-style, as we see in Brian Evenson’s The Torn Curtain or David Ebershoff’s The 19^th Wife, or because it’s presented so abstractly or vaguely that we end up feeling the same way we do when a returned missionary enthusiastically describes an exotic food: we know it must be really, really, really good, but having never tasted it ourselves, we don’t know why.

“Clothing Esther” breaks from this tradition, in some ways, to offer readers some insight into the Mormon temple experience and its meaning to the women who participate in them. For Mary, the main character of the story, the temple experience seems to center on the Initiatory portion of the Endowment ceremony, possibly the only Mormon ordinance in which the genders are wholly segregated. Because Downing is aware that not all of her readers know the temple experience, and possibly to make the story more teachable, she provides this paragraph:

Inside each Mormon temple is a place which is like no other—a quiet veiled-in space where initiate blessings are granted, woman to woman; a place where two sisters in faith, two strangers, stand before one another, look one another in the eye and touch one soul against the other, fingertip to flesh, and repeat the words of a blessing and an anointing, the undefiled intimacy of which reflects the very depths of God’s eternal love for woman, and through her, for all his children. And Mary has been there. (268)

While this paragraph is admittedly abstract and vague in terms of describing the actual ordinance, it is quite explicit about the significance and meaning of the experience for those involved in it, especially Mary. Moreover, against the larger context of the story, it also makes the Initiatory ordinance a metaphor for powerful female relationships within Mormonism, especially between women like Mary and Esther, her mother-in-law.[3] The story, after all, is primarily about the way Mormon women stand in relation to each other, rather than to men, which is often the case in feminist Mormon literature. Esther stands before Mary rather than beside her.

Significantly, before suggests a face to face positioning, as we see in Downing’s description of the Initiatory, as well as a leader/follower positioning, which accurately characterizes Mary’s relationship with her mother-in-law. Throughout her life, Mary notes, Esther was the one who guided her path, “who taught her how,” often in a hands-on/hearts-on way. It is fitting, therefore, that Downing concludes her story with Mary choosing to think about the Initiatory ordinance, as well as the relationship between mother and child, rather than experience the “nightmare” of watching “her friends jointly push, pull, and shove the woman she loves into position amenable to dressing a corpse” (273, 274). For Mary, the Initiatory and motherhood are moments of “undefiled intimacy” where women can be before each other in every sense of the word. In many ways, they are the antithesis of the reverential and respectful—but undeniably coercive—defiled intimacy being played out over the corpse of her mother-in-law.

Think I can convey that to a class of non-Mormon college Freshmen?

Hence my dilemma: “Judging Esther” is one of my favorite stories in Dispensation, but I’m not planning on including it on my syllabus in the spring. Yes, I think the story is teachable, but I worry that teaching it would ultimately prove unsatisfactory. As a teacher, I want to take my students as far into a text as they can go, and since “Judging Esther” is grounded in the concrete and Downing takes the time to teach the reader about the temple and its meaning within Mormon society, I don’t think students would struggle as much with the story as they would with, say, “Calling and Election.”

But, lacking experience with Mormonism and the temple, would they be able to delve deep enough into the story to make it worth their while? Would they be able to grasp the significance of the Initiatory ordinance enough for the story to resonate with them? Or would they only kind of get it the way I, a white Mormon suburbanite in the twenty-first century, only kind of get a novel like Invisible Man--or, for that matter, most of the other stories and novels we'll be reading in the class?[4]

Thoughts?

Notes:

[1] Someday I need to write a post about my love/hate relationship with Orson Scott Card and his writing style.

[2] If not the best.

[3] With this in mind, it’s not altogether surprising that Downing named her characters Mary and Esther after prominent and powerful women in the Bible.

[4] And let me complicate matters further: to what extent do I, as a Mormon man, hit my own wall of understanding as I read "Clothing Esther"?

New Reading List

2012-01-14T06:23:00.000-05:00

I'd like to write a more profound post right now, but I'm facing three fellowship application deadlines that are occupying most of my time right now. Plus, I'm still slogging away at my Ph.D. exams reading lists, which are severely limiting my intake of Mormon literature right now.

Thanks to my parents and Christmas cheer, however, I am now the proud owner of a Kindle Touch. E-readers, I have discovered, are cooler than books. I'm looking forward to the death of non-essential paper in 2022.

Since activating my Kindle, I have downloaded several inexpensive e-copies of Mormon literary works. Someday, I hope to read them all.

Here they are:

Monsters & Mormons, Wm Morris and Theric Jepson

Entwined, Heather Dixon

What of the Night?, Stephen Carter

People of Paradox, Terryl L. Givens

Kindred Spirits, Christopher Kimball Bigelow

Heroes of the Fallen, David J. West

Recently, I've also purchased paper copies of:

Fire in the Pasture, ed. Tyler Chadwick

Dancing Naked, Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner

And received copies of:

In the Mirror, Ann Carbine Best

Wasatch: Mormon Stories and a Novella, Douglas Thayer

In Heaven as it is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Conquest of Death, Samuel Morris Brown

Exhibiting Mormonism: The Latter-day Saints and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Reid Neilson

These books should keep me busy for a while. My dilemma now is finding time to read them.

Mitt Romney's Mormon Lit Blitz Hook Revealed...

2012-01-06T08:16:00.006-05:00

Mitt Romney recently scored a narrow victory in Iowa--just barely--against his fellow GOP front-runner, Pennsylvania magician and escape-artist the Great Santorini. While many were pleased with this victory, including Romney's four wives, others lamented that Romney failed to beat out his opponents by a greater margin of victory.

When asked about why he didn't do better, Romney responded, "I could have done better in Iowa, really, but I was too busy working on my submission for the Mormon Lit Blitz."

Well, folks, there you have it: even Mitt Romney has entered the Mormon Lit Blitz. And with only ten days left to go until the deadline, maybe you should too.

Also, in case any of you are doubting the legitimacy of this post,* and to give Wm Morris something to fear, here's the hook to Romney's Mormon superhero fiction entry:

The Iron Rod Returns

Footsteps! He spins around and crouches for the attack.

“Easy partner,” a familiar voice croons from the shadows.

“Bluntsman?”

“It’s the Liahona, friend. At least while we’re on duty.”

“I thought you quit.” [MORE]

"Like" the Mormon Lit Blitz on Facebook.
Follow the Mormon Lit Blitz on Twitter.
Listen to James Goldberg talk about the Mormon Lit Blitz on YouTube

*It probably goes without saying that this is not a real entry. Mitt Romney has not entered the Mormon Lit Blitz. Nor does he have four wives, a suit of spandex, or Kevlar body armor.

Best and Worst Reads of 2011

2012-01-01T16:47:00.000-05:00

It's now 2012, which means it's time for me to evaluate my reading experiences of 2011. For the most part, 2011 was a good reading year. I read 79 books, which is 25 more than I read last year. I attribute the significant increase to all the reading I've been doing for my Ph.D. qualifying exams. My goal for 2012 is to read more than 100 books. We'll see if that happens.

This year's lists are a bit difficult to draw up since I liked most of what I read. My selections for favorites, therefore, are based not necessarily on any sort of technical criteria, but on the pleasure I gained from reading them. The worsts list is comprised of clear losers all.

At any rate, here are my lists:

Five Best Fiction Books:
1. The Known World, Edward P. Jones
2. Cloudsplitter, Russell Banks
3. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
4. Bound on Earth, Angela Hallstrom
5. The Waterworks, E. L. Doctorow

Five Best Non-Fiction Books:
1. The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1
2. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790-1860, Jane Tompkins
3. The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois
4. Beneath the American Renaissance, David S. Reynolds
5. Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes

Five Worst Books
1. My Year of Meats, Ruth L. Ozeki
2. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, Jane Smiley
3. The Open Curtain, Brian Evenson
4. The Curse of Caste, or The Slave Bride, Julia C. Collins
5. Beloved, Toni Morrison

I might catch flak for #5 on the worst list. I admire Toni Morrison and her writing a lot, but I've never liked her magnum opus. Great premise, terrible execution. Sorry.

So many great books did not make the best lists. Here's a list of ten honorable mentions:

The Tree House, Douglas Thayer
The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
Rift, Todd Robert Petersen
The Coming of Elijah, Arianne Cope
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
The Bondwoman's Narrative, Hannah Crafts
The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym, Edgar Allan Poe
Kindred, Octavia E. Butler
Nightwoods, Charles Frazier
Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser

A Prospective Deacon's Guide to Jock Straps and Disco Dancing: A Review of David Clark's "The Death of a Disco Dancer"

2011-12-30T16:27:00.002-05:00

For me, life began when I was twelve. Before then, I lived in imitation of my older brother: what he did, I tried to do—often less successfully. Take a look at our second grade school pictures. Both of us are wearing the same blue and white v-neck t-shirt. I remember deliberately picking that shirt from my drawer of hand-me-downs because I knew it had been the shirt he had worn for his second grade picture two years earlier. When time came to take the picture, I tried my best to smile just like he had. I had been practicing all morning.

Everything changed when I turned twelve and became my own man. I was a deacon, for one, which meant that I no longer had to suffer the humiliation of being a full-time member of Senior Primary. I also became a Boy Scout, which meant that I could finally carry a pocket knife and light off firecrackers in the woods. I had hit the big time. No more riding on an older brother’s coattails for me. I was a MAN—or, at least, on the cusp of manhood—the envy of Blazers and Valients alike!

Being twelve had its downsides too, which I usually learned the hard way. Kids were meaner in sixth and seventh grade than they had been in fourth and fifth grade, and girls suddenly took shape and became harder to talk to. But I survived it all—somehow—a little worse for wear, no doubt, but with a great deal of nostalgia for the dumb stuff I did to get by and fit in. When I started writing stories at fifteen or sixteen, a lot of them were based on my years as a hapless deacon.

Sadly, the deacon years of the male Mormon experience are not often depicted in Mormon fiction. One can always find deacons in the fiction of Douglas Thayer, of course, and recently Brady Udall featured an imaginative deacon-to-be named Rusty in his novel The Lonely Polygamist. But most Mormon fiction, if it’s not depicting adults, seems more interested in older young men: teachers, priests, or missionaries.

This is perhaps why David Clark’s new novel The Death of a Disco Dancer (ZarahemlaBooks, 2011) stands out in my mind. Set in sweltering Arizona in 1981, the novel follows eleven-year-old Todd Whitman as he stumbles—or, more precisely, limps—towards a Kenny Rogers-infused “Pubescent Apocalypse,” his junior high Hello Dance. Along the way, he participates in various rites of boyhood—oranging, fake fighting, gym class hazing—and learns more about his family history from his grandmother, who lives with his family and suffers from Alzheimer’s. In fact, it’s Todd’s relationship with his grandmother that forms the central nervous system of the novel. Without the chapters devoted to their midnight family history/dancing sessions, the book would be a fun novel, but not necessarily a good one.

Which is odd, because my favorite part of The Death of a Disco Dancer is its sophomoricism, its endless string of crotch humor and juvenile sadism. Todd and his friends, after all, are at an age when the usual childhood games have become boring, so new and more exciting games have to be found. They’re also at an age when puberty has made all things below the belt the punch-line of every half-understood joke. Throughout the novel, Todd’s mind never wanders too far from jock straps, bathrooms, and bodily functions.

Aiding and abetting Todd’s humor is his hilarious older brother Gregory, a ninth grader who masterfully feeds Todd’s prepubescent anxieties. For example, to prepare Todd for junior high gym class, Gregory describes the gauntlet each seventh grader must run to exit the showers:

The seventh grader would dart around the corner into a gauntlet—a birth canal-like aisle of orange locked lined with zitty metal-mouthed ninth graders laughing and screaming the F-word, snapping towels at your bare butt as you ran past them. Some of the meaner ones, Gregory said, would make rat tails—soaking wet towels rolled up as tightly as possible—and aim for your wiener as you instinctively cupped yourself and waddled as fast as you can through the chaos. When snapped correctly, a rat tail sounds like the crack of Indiana Jones’s whip. (169)

Much of what Gregory tells Todd about junior high runs along a similar vein, and all of it keeps the reader laughing, even at times when Gregory tries to be helpful. When Todd frets about not knowing how to dance, Gregory dryly reassures him that “[d]ances are a form of institutionalized mating ritual. And all mating rituals are foolproof. If somebody doesn’t tell you what to do, at the last minutes and in the right situation your natural instincts will take over” (171).

But The Death of a Disco Dancer is not just about wiener jokes and gym class anxiety. As Todd witnesses his grandmother’s mental decline, and especially its effect on his mother, he gains insights about life and death that would have gone unobserved or overlooked if he had been any younger. In a sense, the novel is about the very beginnings of Todd’s coming-of-age, the first summer of the rest of his life. And though the book ends before Todd’s twelfth birthday, readers still get a sense that he’s going to survive the precarious transition from child to teenager years. He may still need a few more dancing lesson, but he’s ready for the responsibilities of a deacon.

The Death of a Disco Dancer is David Clark’s first novel, and part of me hopes that he becomes this century’s Douglas Thayer, whose literary influence seems to pervade the book’s prose. Todd Whitman has a strong, distinct narrative voice that captures perfectly the innate obnoxiousness of early adolescence. Also, Clark incorporates Mormon elements so seamlessly into the novel that one wonders why he felt the need to include a straight-laced “Unofficial Glossary of Selected Mormon Terminology” at the end of the book. I’m no gentile, but I can’t imagine anyone unfamiliar with Mormonism getting lost in this book. Not in an age of Wikipedia, at least.

Admittedly, certain aspects of the novel seem weaker than others. While I appreciate Todd’s relationship with his grandmother—and Clark’s handling of it—I feel as if that aspect of the novel lacks closure. Also, certain elements of the grandmother’s history are never fully fleshed out, particularly her relationship with her husband, whom she remembers only as “The Dancer.” Midway through novel, for instance, Clark introduces a mystery, a certain falling out between the grandparents, which is never articulated in detail. As a reader, I’m curious to know more. I want the mystery solved, the ambiguities gone.

Of course, I recognize that ambiguity well done is the stuff of good fiction, even if it does leave things messy. Still, I’m unsure whether the ambiguities at the end The Death of a Disco Dancer frustrate me or leave me more intrigued with the book and its characters. I guess I’ll have to read it again a few years from now, maybe when I start forgetting how strangely exhilarating it was to be a twelve-year-old Mormon kid on the verge of something terrifying and great. That it, after all, the strength of The Death of a Disco Dancer: its heartfelt, realistic tribute to that age when life truly begins.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of The Death of a Disco Dancer from its publisher, Zarahemla Books, which in no way influenced my review of the book.

"A New Plea for Fiction" on A Motley Vision

2011-12-24T06:31:00.000-05:00

If you haven't yet had a chance to read my new guest post on A Motley Vision, you can access it here.

It is a plea for all of you Mormon fiction writers out there to submit stories about contemporary Mormon life to the Mormon Lit Blitz.

So, go ahead and read it...even if you aren't a fiction writer.

And make sure your Mormon Lit Blitz submissions are in on January 15th.

And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, &c., &c.

Tyler Chadwick Uncut: "Fire in the Pasture" and Mormon Poetry in the 21st Century

2011-12-23T07:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Modern Mormon Men posted an interview I had with Tyler Chadwick, editor of Fire in the Pasture, a recent anthology of Mormon poets. Sadly, I wasn't able to run the full interview on MMM because of its length, so I have decided to post the uncut version here. Most of what you'll read below made the original cut, but a few choice insights--like Chadwick's take on what makes a poet "Mormon"--are unique to this post.

Enjoy.

Scott Hales: What is Fire in the Pasture and how did you become a part of it?

Tyler Chadwick: Fire in the Pasture is an anthology that includes the work of 82 twenty-first century Mormon poets. It was released October 15 by Peculiar Pages, an independent publisher of what the company's proprietor, Eric W Jepson, calls "auspicious multiauthor anthologies"—like The FOB Bible (2009) and Monsters & Mormons (2011). In the publisher's words, Fire in the Pasture is "a major landmark boundary-disrupting game-defining historic unmissable mustread book." As the book's editor and as a poet myself, I'm much less modest. In fact, when I think of the book, I think legendary. Heroic. Epic—in length as well as in importance to Mormon culture. Also, canonical. Or better yet, canon-busting. Then, canon-remaking.

Let me explain: Since 1989 the standard for Mormon poetry has been Eugene England and Dennis Clark's anthology, Harvest: Contemporary Mormon Poems. And it should hold an honored place in Mormon letters: England and Clark gathered hundreds of poems from 58 poets whose writing careers spanned the half-century before the book was published. But that was over two decades ago. And poetry didn't die in or around the '80s, contrary to what some people have written. Neither did Mormon poetry retire nor drift into apostasy after Harvest hit bookshelves. In fact, it may have just been breaking into stride.

Eric acknowledged as much in April 2009 when he asked me if I'd like to edit a new anthology of Mormon poetry. "People are always talking about how we need a new volume of poetry,” he said, “that Harvest, great as it is, was long ago and needs to be supplemented. But, to the best of my knowledge, no one is actually putting anything together. It's all talk. No action.”

And he wanted to take action: "Here's what I have in mind,” he continued. “A survey of the best stuff published [from] the dawn of the millennium . . . through the end of 2010." I jumped at the chance to update Harvest and, before I'd even closed out of my inbox, I started the marathon effort of gathering poems and contacting poets—because, really, who wouldn't want to help the world of Mormon letters move past its apparent Harvest-envy?

SH: A lot of poets talk about how poetry is at least a dying art—something no one ever reads any more. How is that not true in Mormon culture? What is poetry’s place in contemporary Mormonism?

TC: Poetry isn't dying. And any poet who suggests otherwise may not be worth her/his salt as a poet. I'm just sayin'. I mean, seriously, what artists in their right mind would say the craft to which they've dedicated a lifetime is headed for a shallow, unattended grave? Maybe someone who wants to play the victim, I guess—and I'm sure there are poets desperate, for whatever reason, to fill this role, emotionally-sensitive, attention-seeking lot that we are. (And by "we are" I mean, of course, "I am.") But to say poetry is dying or has been or is being killed off ultimately does the craft, its practitioners, and its potential audience a great disservice.

I, for one, believe poetry is as vital and virile as it ever has been, if not more so. Consider the following varieties of contemporary American poetry—though it might be more productive to think of "poetry" in the plural. So: Consider the following short list of contemporary American poetries: ASL, concrete, cowboy, free verse, formal, hip hop, jazz, language, lyric, prose, slam, sound, spoken word, rap, video, visual. And many of these poetries contain further variations on and combinations of each theme. What's more, there's really something there for everyone. If you don't like formal or lyric verse, try some spoken word or slam. If slam's not your cup of tea, try some concrete or visual poetry. And so on and so forth. The reading possibilities are there and anyone with access to the Internet can track down examples of excellence in each category with a simple keyword search (though Googler beware: this will also bring up some not-so-excellent examples).

So, again: poetry isn't dying. It's very much alive and thriving. And you can even have it delivered straight to your RSS reader every day.

As for poetry's place in contemporary Mormon culture, I think Latter-day Saints—as with many in broader American culture—may in general read a) more classic than contemporary poetry (cross reference Best-Loved Poems of the LDS People, which contains work “from Shakespeare, Dickinson, Longfellow, Wordsworth, and Kipling, [. . .] alongside classic LDS poets W.W. Phelps, Eliza R. Snow and David O. McKay”) and b) more didactic or sentimental or sensational verse than work by contemporary poets. By this I mean that many of us may prefer poems that offer an easy moral or emotional or spiritual payload, one that could be grasped with a cursory reading of the text and used to illustrate a gospel principle in a sacrament meeting talk, which, let's face it, may be one of the only times some of us go looking for or are exposed to poetry in the first place (cross reference Especially for Mormons, where, “[f]or almost 30 years, thousands of Saints have turned [. . .] to find inspiring stories, quotes, and thoughts to use in lessons and talks”). But such poems are often really just doctrine or morals masquerading in predictable rhythms and rhymes.

And while I'm happy poetry has any place in contemporary Mormonism, "all is not [yet] well in Zion"—but we're getting there. The quoted part of that statement is an echo of Clinton F. Larson, who is often referred to as the first modern Mormon poet (think Parley P. Pratt meets Dylan Thomas). Larson borrowed the line from Nephi over four decades ago when he was asked in an interview with Ed Geary to consider "the future of poetry in the church." I find the rest of his response especially relevant today when so many Mormon poets have made their way into mainstream American poetry and are being published by respectable journals and presses and being nominated for and winning national prizes and endowments for their work.

Anyway, Larson suggests in his reply to Geary that “[p]art of the spiritual record that must be kept [by the Latter-day Saints] is the poetry of the people.” He then warns that without a “body of significant and enduring poetry” to connect the Saints sensually and aesthetically to their religious experiences, Mormonism's cultural heritage would be in jeopardy. He actually says it would “not, in fact, exist.” Poetry, then, as Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert Hass observes, is “a sign of cultural health.” It’s an indication, Hass continues, that “a lot of people [in the culture are] literate and alive,” simply because “[y]ou have to have some kind of interior life to make [and to enjoy] a work of art and in a world as busy and heedless as this one we need all the consciousness we can muster” in order not to wither on the vine, as it were. So poetry comes of introspection and carries with it an abiding awareness that the inner life matters. And this strikes me as being especially relevant to Mormons in terms of the LDS quest to marry our inner- and outer-lives, to expand our personal and cultural consciences and consciousness toward the establishment of Zion.

But I’ve gone too philosophical now, haven’t I?

SH: How does Fire in the Pasture take Mormon literature—and specifically Mormon poetry—in a new direction?

TC: As I was gathering poems for Fire, my focus increasingly turned to the poets themselves. I wanted less to compile a collection of Mormon poems (as was the case with Harvest, which is subtitled Contemporary Mormon Poems) and more to showcase the depth and breadth of Mormonism’s contemporary poets. In his review of Fire, poet and literary critic Michael R. Collings, whom I invited to include five poems in the anthology, aptly speaks to the distinction—so I’m going to borrow his words:

Rather than being a compilation of “Contemporary Mormon Poems,” with the implication that each of the poems contained therein will somehow reveal its inherent “Mormon-ness” to a discerning reader, Fire shifts attention to “Twenty-first Century Mormon Poets”—the difference being that this collection concentrates on the poetry (and thereby the poetics) of poets who are Mormons. On poets.

As I see it, then (and others are, of course, free to disagree), Fire in part turns attention to the cultural work these poets and their poems perform. This work includes, among other things, theories of life, religion, and spirituality; cultural critique, of Mormonism and beyond; and explorations of doctrinal, historical, personal, and sociological territory that may not be fully possible in the functional—and sometimes completely bureaucratic—prose of historical and contemporary Mormonism.

SH: Fire in the Pasture features the work of seasoned Mormon poets and newcomers alike. What does this rising generation of Mormon poets bring to the anthology?

TC: Save having a bit less experience and cultural cache, the newcomers bring the same thing as the seasoned poets: devotion to the craft and diverse relationships with contemporary Mormonism.

SH: The subtitle to Fire in the Pasture is Twenty-first Century Mormon Poets. What makes a poet Mormon?

TC: From my perspective—and again, others might not necessarily agree with it, but this was how I framed the book—poets are Mormon if they’ve been initiated into mainstream Mormonism, meaning they were at least baptized members of the LDS Church, even if they no longer actively practice the religion or have had their names dropped from Church records. So they at least have some sedimental relationship with Mormonism, even if they don’t worship as Latter-day Saints anymore.

In this light Fire is really more concerned with Mormonism as a cultural construct and less as a purely religious system of doctrines, rituals, ordinances, and beliefs.

SH: Why should every Modern Mormon Man have a copy of Fire in the Pasture on his bookshelf?

TC: Because it matters. And poetry in general matters. And he should really keep it on his nightstand, not on his bookshelf. I mean, look at the cover: it’s gorgeous—and sensual, as poetry is also sensual. Who couldn’t use more of that in their ~~bedrooms~~ lives?

SH: Who would win in a fight between Clinton F. Larson, the Father of Contemporary Mormon Poetry, and, say, T. S. Eliot? Would a tag-team option involving Leslie Norris and Ezra Pound change the outcome?

TC: Honestly, I'd put my money on Eliot, especially if Pound had his back (which he did), especially since Eliot and Pound were larger-than-life during their own lifetimes, and especially since without Eliot and Pound, there may not have been a Larson. Throwing Norris in there might improve Larson’s chances a bit, though.

*****

Tyler Chadwick lives in Pocatello, Idaho, with his wife, Jess, and their four strong-willed daughters. He’s (almost) a doctoral candidate in English at Idaho State University--just needs to get those blasted comprehensive exams out of the way!--and he teaches freshman composition at ISU and online for BYU-Idaho. He sometimes blogs at chasing the long white cloud and A Motley Vision and he's recently started writing on poets, poetries, and poetics attawhiao.tumblr.com. His latest poetry project is an ekphrastic (*bless you*) engagement of J. Kirk Richards’ paintings.

One Year with Mormon Literature

2011-12-17T23:36:00.001-05:00

Today marks one year since I started posting solely about Mormon literature. I thought I'd commemorate the occasion briefly by linking my five favorite posts from the last year.

Here they are in no particular order:

Modern Mormon Family: A Review of Angela Hallstrom's Bound on Earth

A Darkly Sentimental Alley: Rethinking Nephi Anderson and the Home Literature Endeavor

Get Your Hands Off Those Sheep: A Review of H. B. Moore's Ammon

Flooding the Bloggernacle with Mormon Literature...?

The New Home Literature: Art for the Committed Mormon Masses

For the record, I'm going to keep posting weekly as long as I can. I want to end December with a review or two and then begin reading a group of Mormon novels that are part of my qualifying exams. Later, sometime in April, I'll be spending a week or so teaching out of Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction, and around June I'll start working on my dissertation on Mormon fiction.

All in all, I should have plenty of material for posts.

As always, thanks for reading. Keep the comments coming...

It's Not About Mormon Literature, Butt...

2011-12-15T07:39:00.000-05:00

I have a guest post up right now on my friend's new blog, "Heidi Poppins." It's not about Mormon literature, but rather a Christmas story about a special ornament that hangs on my Christmas tree.

You can read "The Butt Ornament" here.

Enjoy

Modern Mormon Men Interview: John S. Dinger and "The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes"

2011-12-12T07:24:00.002-05:00

My latest post is up on Modern Mormon Men. It's an interview with John S. Dinger, editor of The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, forthcoming from Signature Books.

It's a fascinating discussion about Joseph Smith and the relationship between church and state in Nauvoo. Among other things, Dinger provides some great insight into the city council's controversial decision to destroy the Nauvoo Expositor.

In conjunction with the interview is a giveaway hosted by the blog. If you would like to have a chance at winning a free copy of The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, go here and follow the steps provided.

You can read the interview here.

You can learn more about the The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes here.

B. H. Roberts on "Legitimate Fiction" and Social Reform

2011-12-09T07:54:00.003-05:00

In 1889, the Church was on the brink of making significant policy changes that would fundamentally affect the way its members saw themselves and the world around them. Recognizing this, perhaps, B.H. Roberts, writing under the pseudonym "Horatio," made this passionate plea for the legitimacy of fiction in the Latter-day Saint life. "The dry facts of a theory respecting social reform must be made to live in persons and work out the results desired," he argued, and fiction, more so than "a lengthy homily from the church on the subject," was the way to make them live!

Note: I've edited the following text for length and bolded the most important stuff for all you skimmers out there.

from "Legitimate Fiction"

The Contributor 10, 1889

But what in the main I wish to call attention to is the fact that it is becoming generally recognized that the medium of fiction is the most effectual means of attracting the attention of the general public and instructing them. The dry facts of a theory respecting social reform must be made to live in persons and work out the results desired. The essayist is a character of the past, the novelist of a certain type is taking his place.

Nor is this style of fiction confined to these modern days; it existed in very ancient times, as witness the life of Cyrus by Xenophon. As Cicero says to his brother Quintus, in a letter, "The design of Xenophon in writing the life of Cyrus, was not so much to follow truth, as to give a model of a just government," and I might add, of a prince and a man. To show how effective this style of composition was in the hands of such a master as Xenophon, I introduce an incident which he relates of Cyrus in the before mentioned work. When Cyrus was some twelve years of age he was taken by his mother, Mandane, to visit his grandfather, Astyages, king of Media. Here everything was different from what Cyrus had been accustomed to in Persia. Voluptuousness, intemperance, pride and magnificence were characteristic of it. When the time came for Cyrus to return, a great feast was gotten up in his honor, for he had become a general favorite at the court of Media. At this feast Cyrus was permitted to distribute the meats as he saw proper, which he did, giving such quality and quantity to each of the King's officers, agreeable to his own fancy or pleasure; to one because he had taught him to ride; to another, because he waited well upon his grandfather; to another, because he took great care of his mother; but to the King's cup-bearer he gave nothing. This officer being the one who introduced those who had an audience with the king, and not having procured that privilege for Cyrus as often as he desired it, he was no great favorite with the prince who took this opportunity of showing his resentment.

King Astyages was displeased at the slight given one for whom he had a particular regard, because, as he said, of the graceful dexterity with which he served him. "Is that all papa!" said young Cyrus, "if that be sufficient to merit your favor, you shall see I will quickly obtain it; for I will take it upon me to serve you better than he." He left the banquet hall soon to return with a napkin over his shoulder, and holding the cup filled with wine gracefully with three fingers, he approached the king to whom he presented the cup with such charming dexterity and grace that he won the applause of all present, but most of all the praises of the king; "O, Sacas! poor Sacas!" meaning the cup-bearer, "thou art undone; I shall take thy place!" exclaimed the young prince as he kissed the king. Only one ceremony he had omitted, that of pouring a little wine into the left hand and tasting it before handing it to the king, and to this his grandfather now called his attention: "I am mighty well pleased, my dear child: no body can serve me with a better grace; but you have forgotten one essential ceremony, which is that of tasting." "No, it is not through forgetfulness that I omitted the ceremony," replied the young prince. "Why then, for what reason did you do it?" "Because I apprehended there was poison in the liquor." "Poison, child! How could you think so?" "Yes, poison, papa, for not long ago, at an entertainment you gave the lords of your court, after the guests had drunk a little of that liquor, I perceived all their heads were turned; they sang, made a noise, and talked they did not know what; you yourself seemed to have forgotten that you were king, and they, that they were subjects; and when you would have danced, you could not stand upon your legs." "Why, have you never seen the same thing happen to your father?" broke in the king. "No, never," replied Cyrus. "How is it with him then when he drinks?" "Why, when he has drunk, his thirst is quenched, and that's all."

It matters not much to us whether the foregoing actually occurred or not. There stands a glorious lesson on intemperance; more impressive than a lengthy homily from the church on the subject; more effective than any mere scientific treatment of the subject, with its learned terms and cold moral precepts could be; at the same time it pleases the fancy with its dramatic force and beautiful simplicity.

I can see no harm in such fiction as this; on the contrary, I recognize an effective and pleasing method of teaching doctrine, illustrating principle, exhibiting various phases of character, and making the facts of history at once well known, and giving them an application to human conduct. This class of fiction, indeed, is working its way into our own literature; and stories illustrating the evils overtaking young women, who marry those not of our faith, have appeared both in the Juvenile Instructor and the CONTRIBUTOR. Nor do I think any one reading those stories can doubt their effectiveness; and I am of the opinion that this style of teaching can be employed successfully in other directions.

I hope these remarks will not be construed into a defense of those inflammatory, sensational novels,

Which, kindling a combustion of desire

With some cold moral think to quench the fire-

Though all their engineering proves in vain,

The dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again.

Such works of fiction cannot be too much condemned, nor too severely barred entrance into the household, especially the households of the Saints; and with Cowper I could wish:

* * * A verse had power and could command,

Far, far away these flesh flies from the land;

Who fasten without mercy on the fair,

And suck and leave a craving maggot there!

For with him I agree that-

Such writers and such readers owe the gust

And relish of their pleasure all to lust.

But while the class of fiction which snivels and drivels folly without end, and is composed of "sentimental frippery and dream," and which mars what it would mend-is to be condemned; it by no means follows that the great works of Scott, Lytton, Thackeray, Dickens, Browning, George Elliot and Victor Hugo are also to be condemned. To bar such works as these from our homes or libraries would be to deny ourselves access to the richest treasures of English literature.

Horatio.

I'm not going to comment at length on this piece, but I think it's interesting that the "inflammatory, sensational novels" Roberts condemns are later described as "the class of fiction which snivels and drivels folly without end, and is composed of 'sentimental frippery and dream." In other words, Roberts, like so many Mormon literary critics seventy years later, seemed to have had no time for the fluffy, popular literature of his day. True, he wanted a didactic literature, but Roberts did not, as we often do today, associate "didactic" with bad literature. For him, rather, it seemed to mean a literature that sought to teach and shape the social conscience of the reader. Hence, his endorsement of talented, well-respected writers like Scott, Lytton, Thackeray, Dickens, Browning, Elliot, and Hugo, all of whom wrote powerful works designed to effect some kind of deep social change or another.

We ought to keep this in mind when we look at the creative efforts of the Mormon writers of Roberts' day. Were their didactic works little more that trite homilies, or were they powerful instruments of social change within the Mormon community?

Also, would it be that bad of a thing to say that realistic Mormon fiction today is fundamentally and powerfully didactic?

Romneyxiety, Faux-Mo Lit, and the Fetishization of the "Bizarre"

2011-12-01T22:33:00.012-05:00

Thanks to Mitt Romney and cultural appropriations like The Book of Mormon, everybody has something to say about the Mormons these days. A few weeks ago, for example, the illustrious Harold Bloom took time out from his petrification to grace the world with a fretful New York Times opinion piece on Romney’s run for the presidency. More recently, Michael Ruse expressed similar concerns in a Chronicle of Higher Education blog post. Like other non-Mormon commentators on Mormonism, he was quick to bring up planets, golden plates, and “creepy” Mormon underwear.[1]

I suppose we can forgive Ruse for the way he fetishized seemingly bizarre aspects of Mormonism in his piece. It’s nothing new: people have been doing it since the first Palmyrenes caught wind of Joseph Smith’s “Golden Bible” in the late 1820s. And Ruse is hardly the creepiest of fetishizers. That distinction goes to Max Florence and Gisbert Bossard, two men who tried to extort the Church in 1911 with photos of the interiors of the Salt Lake Temple and Beehive House, including a photo of Joseph F. Smith’s bed. Next to these chaps, Ruse and the rest of the “magical underwear”-loving crew seem kind of dull.

Still, it’s funny how the fetishizers get such a kick out of boiling Mormonism down to Kolob and the Golden Plates, as if such things were cornerstones of Mormon theology. If Romney is elected president in 2012, I hope they aren’t let down when he turns out to be a rather dull Jack.[2] Sadly, I don’t think he’ll be pouring money into the Smithsonian to fund archeological expeditions to Mexico to uncover ancient Nephite artifacts. Nor do I think he’ll spend a whole lot of time searching for Kolob with his all-access pass to the Hubble Telescope. Heck, he probably won’t even Bush his religion around all that much. Not as much as the fetishizers would like him to, at least.

Since this is a Mormon literature blog, I should probably point out that this brand of fetishizing is one of the hallmarks of faux-Mo lit. Recently on A Motley Vision, in fact, Theric tackled this very issue in his review of James Rollins’ novel The Devil Colony, which apparently sags with references to Golden Plates and a Mormon Kodesh Hakodashim! I mean, is it not telling that Ruse cites Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet as his first primer on Mormonism? It makes one wonder about the influence of, say, polygamy sexploitation novels.

Of course, it is my observation that real Mormon literature is much less likely to hold “bizarre” Mormonism up as a fetish than its faux-Mo counterpart. There are exceptions to this rule, no doubt, like the recent Monsters & Mormons, which brilliantly fetishizes the fetishization of Mormonism. But that’s an exception. Mormon literature, for better or for worse, is fairly down-to-earth stuff. Like most Mormons, it doesn’t spend a whole lot of time hie-ing to Kolob or digging up Golden Plates.[3]

[1] I’m not sure what’s creepier: the fact that Mormons wear garments or that Ruse is looking at picture of them online. I mean, what’s up with the link?

[2] Dull in the sense that he’s not going to reference the Golden Plates in his inaugural address or walk out onto the White House lawn in his “creepy” underwear.

[3] If you’re interested, Todd Robert Petersen makes the non-Mormon fetishization of “weird” Mormonism the theme of his short story “Redeeming the Dead” from Long After Dark.

The End is Near! Read Modern Mormon Men!

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

My latest post is up on Modern Mormon Men. In it I use the upcoming Apocalypse to talk about a few Mormon books I'm interested in reading right now. I also shamelessly pitch the Mormon Lit Blitz.

You can read the post here.

The New Home Literature: Art for the Committed Mormon Masses

2011-11-25T00:11:00.000-05:00

“Our literature must live and breathe for itself. Our mission is diverse from all others; our literature must also be.”

--Orson F. Whitney, "Home Literature"

When Orson F. Whitney delivered his landmark 1888 speech “Home Literature,” he had one thing in mind: Missionary Work. That’s the impression you get, at least, from a passage like this one:

"Wake up! ye sons and daughters of God! Trim your lamps and go forth to meet your destiny. A world awaits you: rich and poor, high and low, learned and unlearned. All must be preached to; all must be sought after; all must be left without excuse. And whither we cannot go, we must send; where we cannot speak we must write; and in order to win men with our writings we must know how and what to write [….] For over fifty years the gospel has been preached to the poor and lowly. It will yet go to the high and mighty, even to kings and nobles, and penetrate and climb to places hitherto deemed inaccessible. Our literature will help to take it there; for this, like all else with which we have to do, must be made subservient to the building up of Zion."

And it’s a pretty accurate impression. Throughout the speech, which is one of the earliest pieces of Mormon literary theory out there, Whitney kept coming back to missionary work. When he famously prophesied that “[we] will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own,” it was with the hope that such would be able to bring into the fold the kind of people who read Milton and Shakespeare.

Even though he was extremely popular in his day, Orson F. Whitney is now largely forgotten--except, maybe, as a name that occasionally pops up in Sunday School manuals. “Home Literature,” too, is almost lost to time. Unless you’re really into Mormon literary studies, it’s unlikely that you’ve ever heard of it.

Still, the speech’s influence lives on. Turn-of-the-Century Mormon writers, took Whitney’s challenge seriously. In publications like The Contributor, The Juvenile Instructor, The Young Women’s Journal, The Woman’s Exponent, and The Improvement Era, they published stories, poems, and essays that put a new, more evangelically useful face on Mormonism. For today’s readers, these works seem a little trite, hardly Milton or Shakespeare; back in the day, though, they were a powerful force in shaping the way the Church and its member saw themselves.

Of course, this approach to literature-making had its drawbacks. For one, it led many to associate Mormon literature with missionary work and PR efforts, even though this certainly wasn’t the aim of every work being publish. It also gave rise to the stereotype that all Mormon literature was preachy, cheesy, and (at worst) deceptive in its no-warts depictions of Mormon life. Today, when a Mormon book gets called “Home Literature,” it’s not meant as a compliment. It’s basically another way of saying the book is little more than sermonizing fluff, the print equivalent of diet Sprite.

And—to be honest—some of it is. Unlike its turn-of-the-century predecessor, this so-called “Home Literature” does nothing more for its Mormon readers than lull them away with promises of “clean” entertainment and hardly any pressure to change in a meaningful way. True, such novels offer uplifting messages and wholesome homilies, but they often do little but assure the reader that all is well in Zion.

In my opinion, this literature is not Home Literature. Superficially it may sound like home literature, but it doesn’t act like it. It is a true impostor. Try to shake its hand and all you’ll get is air.

So, what is the new Home Literature?

First, let’s go back to Orson F. Whitney. True, his ideal Home Literature was missionary minded, but it was also meant to be a reflection of the writer’s commitment to the Gospel of Christ, the Kingdom of God, and the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. “[A] pure and powerful literature can only proceed from a pure and powerful people,” he argued, and a people could only be pure and powerful under the refining influence of Christ and the Spirit. For Whitney, in fact, the Holy Ghost was the muse, “the genius of ‘Mormon’ literature.” Without it, there was no Home Literature.

This brings me to our next dilemma. If Home Literature is meant to be a reflection of the writer’s commitment to the Gospel, doesn’t that automatically preclude the writer from trying to tackle tough issues in realistic ways? I mean, can a writer really, really be committed to the Gospel and write something that doesn’t put a nice sheen the Mormon experience?

Or, similarly: How can a writer show his or her commitment to the Gospel and not write something that is trite and cheesy? Isn’t that generally the problem with Mormon literature in the first place? Too many people trying to bear testimony with characters, setting, and plot?

Here we have the First Great Fallacy, the belief that the faithful voice and the artistic voice can’t tie the knot without producing a houseful of corn and cheese. This is closely associated with the Second Great Fallacy, the belief that a faithful audience will never give ear to an artistic writer’s work. And the Third Great Fallacy, the belief that an artistic audience has no time for a faithful voice. And, for that matter, the Fourth Great Fallacy, the belief that the faithful Mormon life isn't complex enough for good art.

I could go on.

The basic truth is this: Orson F. Whitney was on to something. Literature is a force to be reckoned with, capable of enacting great change and gathering diverse people into a unified whole. It can only be so, however, if we make it so.

A false tradition has been handed to us that says Mormon literature will only appeal to the Mormon masses if it’s faithful fluff—or, conversely, faithful literature will only appeal to more “sophisticated” readers if it’s riddled with subversive content (i.e. profanity, castrations, coffee) and an undercurrent of doubt. Proponents of such falsehoods like to point out that there’s little evidence to the contrary. To borrow loosely from Whitney’s own imagery, which he borrowed from the Savior himself, such individuals are content with pouring new wine into the old bottles of yesteryear, forcing potentially fresh Mormon literature to fit within the tired stereotypes, and ruining it in the process.

To be clear, I am not saying Mormon literature needs to purge itself of the subversive and doubtful. That would needlessly limit its scope. What I am saying is that Mormon literature needs to toss aside the idea that subversion and such represent the only way to merge art with faith. As I see it, there is room for all kinds of Mormon literatures. If we close the door on one approach, say it can’t be done, we are casting our lot against all of Mormon literature. It is only in the intense rivalry of these various approaches that Mormon literature can ever hope for a richer, more diverse future.

So, here’s the challenge of the New Home Literature: finding a way to merge art and faith in a way that appeals not only to the “serious” Mormon reader, but also to the masses of committed Mormons. Only then, I believe, will it be able to skirt the impostor’s fate and truly matter. Only then will it be like its predecessor: a powerful and influential cultural force.

The Mormon Lit Blitz Writing Contest

2011-11-21T07:23:00.001-05:00

Chances are, you've already seen this. But if you haven't, you should take a quick look. It's a contest being organized by James Goldberg and me, and it's open to all writers interested in writing for an audience who loves Mormonism. Judging is blind, so seasoned Mormon writers and new-comers alike have a chance of winning the grand prize: a Kindle pre-loaded with works of great Mormon literature.

Not a writer? That's okay. In February you can read the contest finalists' work online and vote for the one you like best. Until then, you can also stay updated on the contest by "liking" the Mormon Lit Blitz on Facebook and following it on Twitter.

Also, keep checking back here for more posts related to Mormon literature and the Mormon Lit Blitz.

CALL FOR CONTEST SUBMISSIONS

Now announcing the first ever Mormon Lit Blitz Writing Contest. Send up to three submissions by 15 January 2012 to mormonlitblitz at gmail dot com for a chance to win a Kindle and more.

What we want:
Short work for Mormons to be published and read online.

The details:
“Short” means under 1,000 words.

“Work” means creative writing in any genre, from literary realism to far future science fiction, and in any form: fiction, essay, poetry, even play or screenplay if you can keep it under 1,000 words. Give us a tiny, polished gem we can show off to people who love Mormonism and love great writing but “know not where to find” a place where the two meet.

“For Mormons” means for committed Latter-day Saints. Yes, that’s an extremely diverse audience (see the “I’m a Mormon” campaign—and your ward members), but it’s also an audience with distinctive shared values and history that don’t often get attention in creative work. We want you to write something that will appeal to us as people who believe in the sacred, who have ridiculous numbers of brothers and sisters we see every week, who worry about being good and faithful servants no matter what our day jobs are and wonder what it will be like to meet our grandparents’ grandparents in heaven. We don’t need your pieces to preach to us. We do need them to combine your creativity and religious commitment in a way that excites us and gives us something cool to talk about with our Mormon friends.

“To be published and read online” means we’re going to post six to twelve finalists’ pieces on Mormon Artist magazine’s blog (www.mormonartist.net) and then ask readers to vote on their favorites.

One catch: since even 1,000 words can be intimidating on a screen, your piece needs a strong hook of no more than 120 words (or eight lines for poetry) to be visible on the main blog page. Mark the end of your hook with [MORE]. Even our editors will only read further if you’ve piqued their interest.

Submission Guidelines:Submissions must have fewer than 1,000 words with a hook no longer than 120 words (or eight lines for poetry). Submissions must be engaging to Latter-day Saints and engage with their Mormon identity in some way.

Authors may submit up to three works. Each submission must be attached to an email as a .doc or .pdf file. The selection process is blind, so the author’s name should not appear on the document.

Email any questions and your submissions to mormonlitblitz at gmail dot com. Submission emails should contain the author’s name, the titles of each submission, and contact information (telephone number or email address).

By submitting, authors give us the one-time rights to publish their work electronically. Previously published work is OK if you still have the rights to the piece and if it meets the above contest requirements (don’t forget to add a [MORE] tag to the end of your hook).

The prize:
The contest editors will select six to twelve finalists. All finalists will have their short works published online starting in mid-February 2012 and actively promoted across the LDS blogosphere by the Mormon Lit Blitz team.

After all pieces have been published, readers will vote on a single Grand Prize Winner, who will receive a Kindle pre-loaded with LDS literary works, including Parley P. Pratt’s classic short “A Dialogue Between Joseph Smith and the Devil,” Peculiar Pages’ recent Monsters & Mormons anthology, Zarahemla Books’ Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction, the poetry anthology Fire in the Pasture, and recent issues of Mormon Artist magazine.

New Low-Tech Web Address

2011-11-17T09:21:00.000-05:00

The Low-Tech World has a new web address: www.low-techworld.org.

Update your blog rolls, feeds, and subscriptions accordingly.

Reviewing Mormon Literature

2011-11-17T08:16:00.002-05:00

A few months ago I became the book review editor for Irreantum, the literary journal published by the Association for Mormon Letters. So far the job has been challenging in a good way. I’ve never worked officially as an editor before, so I’m learning a lot and acquiring skills that will probably benefit me well into the future. I’m also getting random, unsolicited review copies in the mail from publishers and authors who want me to run reviews of their books. (By the way, you should probably subscribe to Irreantum. Here's how: http://irreantum.mormonletters.org/Subscribe.aspx)

So, not a bad gig.

Anyway, this post has two purposes. I’ll get the first one out of the way right now:

I’m currently putting together a list of potential reviewers, a veritable bullpen of insightful readers and writers who are willing to step up whenever a book needs reviewing. As is often the case, Irreantum doesn’t get a lot of book review submissions, so it is my job to a) find existing reviews on blogs that can be turned into journal reviews or b) recruit people to review texts of b.1) my choosing or b.2) their choosing. This is not a terribly difficult job, but it can be time consuming if no one is posting reviews on blogs or slamming my inbox with submissions.

So, if you’d like to be in the bullpen…let me know. In most cases you’ll at least get a free copy of the book under review and a contributor’s copy of the Irreantum issue carrying your work.

Now for the second purpose:

Just as there is no wrong way to eat a Reese’s, there is no right way to write a book review. Still, to encourage review submissions and aid potential reviews along, I am in the process of drafting guidelines for writing Irreantum book reviews. So far, this is what I have:

Since Irreantum is a journal focused on Mormon literature, it’s primarily interested in publishing reviews of fiction, poetry, and drama by or about Mormons. Reviews of visual narratives, like graphic novels, and texts published in emerging literary forms are also considered.

Reviewed texts do not need to be brand new, although reviews of recent texts are preferred. Irreantum is also interested in publishing, from time to time, new reviews of “lost” Mormon literature—say from the 1960s or 70s or earlier.

Most book reviews in Irreantum run anywhere from 1000 words to 2000 words, although longer reviews are not uncommon.

Book reviews should address a work’s literary value and possible significance to Mormon literature as a whole. It can likewise touch on what the work has to say about Mormonism culturally.

Reviews should draw attention to such things as the work’s target audience, major theme or themes, style and tone, characters, character development, plot, and genre. Reviewers should also incorporate direct quotes or passages from the text to supplement the review’s main points.

Theological matters can be brought up in a review, but they should not overwhelm it.

Reviews can provide some biographical information about the work’s author. Special attention should be paid to the author’s previous works and how the new work fits in or takes the author’s career in new directions.

The style and tone of a review does not need to be formal and scholarly, although it can be. Also, reviewers can include autobiographical anecdotes in the review as long as they are relevant and do not distract from the primary work of the review.

Reviewers should keep in mind that the Mormon literary community is small. Likely, if you review a book, the author of that book will read your review. Be fair. Be helpful. Be honest.

A review should point out flaws when necessary and always have something good to say about a text. They should also be free of ad hominem attacks and any comparison of a text to Milton or Shakespeare.

The long and short of it is this: write about the book—what you love or hate about it, why others should or should not read it, etc. Write something that will do justice to the book and be helpful for future readers. Have fun with it. Let the readers get a sense of your connection with the text.

Reviews can be submitted to reviewsubmissions at mormonletters dot org.

Again, this is only a rough draft of review guidelines and does not represent any official review policies of Irreantum or the Association for Mormon Letters. As many of you know, AML has its own policies for reviews published on its websites. Reviewers for Irreantum would do well to look at those guidelines as well.

Also: is there anything I’ve missed? What more should a review of Mormon literature include?

Latest Modern Mormon Men Post: "Revisiting My Dorky Childhood"

2011-11-11T07:29:00.000-05:00

My latest post is up on Modern Mormon Men today. It's called "Revisiting My Dorky Childhood." You should read it. It has nothing to do with Mormon literature. But you should read it.

You should also make a habit of reading Modern Mormon Men. It's not just for the guys.

Already this week they've featured great posts on motherhood and sacrifice, Mormon myths, personal tragedies, and youth finding acceptance through Michael Jackson music.

Also, if you want to donate your old comics to me to help rebuild my collection, contact me by comment, email, airmail, or telepathy.

You can also follow me on Twitter because I need more followers. In fact, you can follow me on Twitter even if you don't have any comic books.

'Nuff said!

Nephi Anderson's "The Inevitable" in Action; Or, My Critical Bromance with "The Author of Added Upon" Continues

2011-11-07T21:44:00.001-05:00

Recently I came across Nephi Anderson's 1907 short story "The Inevitable," which was published in the August issue of The Improvement Era. The story recounts an evening discussion between Bert Archer, a recent Mormon convert, and Lucy, his non-Mormon wife. Lately, Bert has been trying to share his new-found faith with Lucy, who adamantly insists that she "shan't and won't be a 'Mormon!" Bert is persistent, though, and presses his wife for an explanation. This is what ensues:

"I don't understand 'Mormonism,' " she continued, "and I can't believe what I do not understand. And especially the marriage part of your religion-there are some things in it that I can't and won't believe."

"What particular part, for instance?"

"Polygamy."

He did not laugh at her, but it was a big, broad smile which she saw across the table.

"As far as we are concerned here and now," he said, "that is a matter scarcely worth debating. Wherever or whenever we see that 'article' we may be sure that it is contraband. You need not worry about polygamy, my dear. Let us get down to the first principles."

"No; I am going to stay with the 'higher principles,' as you call them. Faith, repentance and baptism may be well enough, but what about plural marriage and these other things?"

"Well, what about them, dear?"

She did not reply, but she leaned forward and adjusted the coal in the grate. He wondered at the strange mood she was in tonight. When she sat up again she did not look at him, but at the picture of a sweet-faced woman [Bert's deceased first wife] hanging on the wall above him. After a few moments, her eyes still fixed on the picture, she said:

"She must have been a beautiful girl. Was she?"

"I think so; and as good as she was beautiful.

"She had never heard of 'Mormonism,' had she?"

"No; she died six months before the 'Mormon' elders came to our town."

"Had she lived, do you think she would have become a 'Mormon?."

"I have no doubt about it. Our religious views were much alike, and we often discussed principles which later I learned were gospel truths."

"Did you ever discuss the marriage question with her?"

"Do husband and wife ever talk of marriage? Well, now-"

"I mean from the 'Mormon' viewpoint, of course, that of marriage for eternity."

"Yes; although we did not have much light on the question, we having been taught from childhood that the marriage relations entered into here were only binding until death did us part. It seemed to us that there was something wrong, but we could not locate it. If we are eternal beings, we reasoned, and have an eternal principle, why should not love continue as long as there is existence. And then, again, what God does should be eternal, and we believed that when Parson Brown married us-as he married you and me-and said, 'What God hath joined, let no man put asunder,' we believed he had the authority which he claimed. But I'll admit that we were somewhat at sea on these matters."

"Now, Bert; tell me this: you believe that the true marriage state exists eternally. You loved your first wife as much-well as much as you say you love me. You will want her in the next world as much as you say you want me." She looked fixedly at him across the table.

"True, dear, true, but-"

"Don't you think, Bert, that I can see the inevitable result of this marriage system? Yes; I am not so dull, or so blind.-All you need to do is to be sealed to your first wife for eternity, and then marry me for time and eternity in your temple, and there you have it."

Bert did not reply.

"You will then two wives at the same time," she said.

"Your reasoning is absolutely correct," he replied.

***

By today's standards, and possibly even by those of its own day, "The Inevitable" is not a great story. Still, Bert and Lucy's discussion of Mormon marriage doctrines, published three years after the so-called Second Manifesto and six months after the close of the Reed Smoot hearings, is a piece of Home Literature that exemplifies the cultural work being done by Mormon literature at the time. Bert, a well-read and articulate man, serves as a highly rational model of a believer, the antithesis of the stereotypical Mormon then being demonized by the national presses. What is more, he acts as a mouthpiece for the relatively new LDS stance on marriage, carefully distancing the Church and its men from polygamy (without, of course, disavowing the principle or its place in the hereafter) and affirming the inherent logic behind the principle of eternal marriage. Indeed, his confident, unabashed defense of Mormonism and its teachings seems calculated to assure Anderson's 1907 readers that its okay to be a Latter-day Saint.

***

"The Inevitable" is not a well-known story, but it is among the many lost Mormon short stories that need to be dusted off and studied critically to better understand Mormon literature and its role in the creation of Mormon culture and life. Who knows what these forgotten texts have to teach us about ourselves and our cultural tradition?

John Lyon's "Murder Will Out": 19th Century Mormon Pulp

2011-11-02T18:07:00.000-04:00

In celebration of Monday's release of the highly-anticipated (and highly quirky) Mormon literature anthology Monsters & Mormons, I give you this classic ghost story written by John Lyon, Mormon poet.

It first appeared in the June 1883 issue of The Contributor.

"Murder Will Out"

by John Lyon

WHEN I was nine years old, I was terrified to go to bed alone, I had heard so many tales of ghosts, and witches, that I was afraid even at that advanced age of boyhood to sleep alone. My mother was a strong minded woman on every subject but one, and that was in the fear of spirits after death, and of their appearance to people who survived their decease. In consequence, this subject was often brought up by neighbors who came to visit her, and I became a retentive auditor and stored my mind with these spiritual relations, that to this day cause me to keep a sharp lookout, in out-of-the-way places, for something supernatural.

Among the innumerable stories thus told in my childhood, there was one I could never forget, which was related by a soldier's wife, and which I believe was quite authentic. Her husband was a private in the Lanarkshire militia, and she was with the regiment as a laundress, in the seaport town of Dundalk, Ireland, in the year 1792, when this circumstance transpired.

In the above town there were two men who kept a store in partnership, doing an extensive business an all maritime articles, and they were thought by the public to have accumulated a great amount of wealth. Suddenly one of them left, and no reason could be imagined for his disappearance. Sometime had transpired, and there being no prospects of his return, his wife demanded that a settlement be made of their affairs in stock and trade. This was not done before in consequence of a report being circulated, that her husband had taken with him a large amount of money belonging to the firm, which the remaining partner had kept secret for the sake of his family. However, he complied with the lady's desire, and an inventory was taken, that she might know her portion of the stock. This was done so rapidly and the value of the proceeds was so small, that her friends who had been interested in the division of the property, thought something was wrong, not only in the smallness of the amount of goods, and the largeness of the firm's indebtedness; but the hurried way in which every thing was done by the partner, who had the property and stock in his possession, looked very suspicious. The lady whose grief was already extreme was still more, grieved to know that her husband who was esteemed, not only to be wealthy but honest, having held a respectable position in society, should without any apparent cause so suddenly leave, his worth reduced to an insignificant amount, compared with what it should be in view of his economical way of living, and the vast amount of business done as a ship storing merchant.

A short time after the settlement, the heart sick, and desolate lady lay in her sleepless bed thinking over her bereavement, and the strange turn of her lost husband's affairs, when there he stood before her, seemingly bathed in blood! So real was the apparition that for a moment she thought he had returned to his home. Stretching out her hand she accosted him by name, and was in the act of rising from her couch, when he waved his hand to her, and said he was no more of this world, and that he had been permitted to appear, and reveal to her the mystery of his disappearance. He informed her, that he and his partner had gone out on a pleasure sailboat, and that the latter struck him down with a hatchet, tied a sack with a large stone in it to his body, and threw him into the sea. Her husband commanded her that she should go directly and inform the magistrates of this crime, and have the murderer apprehended, not only for his murder, but for swindling her out of his property. At this point of the spectres relation, the lady fainted, and when she had come to her senses the spirit was gone. The day following she went as the spirit had told her to the magistrate. When he heard the relation, looking upon it as a delusion, he said he could do nothing in the matter, as there were no witnesses to prove what she had told him.

Sorrowful, and disappointed she returned to her home, and when night again invited her to a weary sleepless couch, through vexation, and the nameless trepidation of a spiritual visitation, she lay down wide awake, when, lo! as she expected, her husband again appeared, and spoke to her in soothing encouraging language bidding her not to be afraid and telling her, as if he knew what the magistrate had said, in respect to having no witnesses to verify the truth that he had been murdered, that he would appear himself in person, at twelve o'clock on the morrow at the levee of the new dock-telling her to describe his wounds, which he showed her, and his appearance as she saw him on both nights.

As directed, the lady again called on the magistrate, and told him the request of the spectre. Still unbelieving, the official ordered a warrant for the apprehension of the accused partner. Early in the day the town of Dundalk was well informed of this wonderful affair, namely, that a dead man would appear as a witness against the murderer of himself! Thousands of people turned out on the levee, some laughing at the credulity of the story as a spirit hoax, others less infidel, and others firmly believing in the truthfulness of the revelation waited in patience, expecting to see a personage of the other world. To the surprise of the multitude, just as the sun was at the meridian, there the dead body of the lost man floated into the new harbor, his skull cloven, as before told. The authorities present thought the fact most damning, as no person could have brought the body to land precisely at the appointed hour, as it was seen borne by the waves when far out on the water, before the time specified it would arrive.

The person taken on suspicion that morning, when he heard of this wonderful appearance and discovery, seen by thousands, so corroborative of his guilt, confessed his crime, and also to robbing his partner's widow, upon which confession he was brought before the lords of the justiciary, condemned and afterwards executed at the new dock. The place to this day is called the hangman's harbor.

The person who told me this story was a spectator on the quay and saw the body float into the harbor.

500 Words on the Cultural Work of Mormon Fiction

2011-10-27T13:11:00.002-04:00

In her book Sensational Designs, Jane Tompkins suggests that “novels and stories should be studied not because they manage to escape the limitations of their particular time and place, but because they offer powerful examples of the way a culture thinks about itself, articulating and proposing solutions for the problems that shape a particular historical moment” (xi).

Texts, in other words, perform cultural work. They both reflect “the way a culture thinks about itself” and participate in what I call cultural projects, or efforts toward cultural change.

Along with individual texts, literary movements perform cultural work. In an earlier post, for example, I have suggested that the cultural work of late Home Literature was to aid Mormonism’s transition from a regional polygamist religious sect to a more mainstream American religion. One could also argue that the cultural work of early Home Literature essentially performed the opposite: the fierce defense of polygamy as a signifier of Mormon identity.

Home Literature—or what some label as Home Literature—continues to this day in the form of popular Mormon fiction. These texts, of course, perform a cultural work, but it’s a work that does little more than affirm the status quo. At best, they display a kind of squeaky-clean cleverness of style; at worst, they are generically derivative fluff that currently has no relevant voice in Mormonism’s current cultural projects.

But I don’t see this new kind of Home Literature as Home Literature in the tradition of Nephi Anderson and his contemporaries, even though its aesthetic seems very similar. What the cultural project of Mormonism needed in 1911, when it still needed to convince all of America that it wasn’t a “weird and sinister” cult, was very different from what it needs now as the Church is transitioning into a more diverse world religion. Arguably, popular Mormon fiction is feeding into a dead cultural project.

So-called Faithful Realism is, in many ways, the real descendent of the Home Literature tradition primarily because it is performing relevant cultural work that is, to borrow from Tompkins, “articulating and proposing solutions for the problems” that are shaping Mormonism’s “particular historical moment.” Central to this work, I think, is Faithful Realism’s interest in broader definitions of Mormon identity and experience.

Interestingly, the end of Faithful Realism’s cultural relevance is in sight. Twenty-five years ago, when The Backslider was published, it was subversive in its insistence on the primacy of Christ's grace in the Plan of Salvation. Now, all that’s subversive about it is its rejection of a CleanFlicks aesthetic. More recently, Long After Dark and the fiction anthology Dispensation seemed subversive in their depictions of atypical Mormon experiences. Now, these works are beginning to seem like slightly edgier versions of the “I’m a Mormon” campaign.

Am I wrong to suggest that the cultural work of Faithful Realism is becoming a less subversive voice in Mormonism’s current cultural project? Is it possible that Faithful Realism will soon* fall in step with the new status quo and become irrelevant?

* Within twenty years or so?

One "Long" Record of Failure: A Review of Jana Riess's "Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor"

2011-10-20T00:31:00.003-04:00

At least three or four times a week I stop whatever I’m doing and ridicule the memoir genre. Often without provocation. The family will be sitting down at the dinner table, eating broccoli soup, and I will interrupt my four-year-old daughter’s energetic rendition of Beyoncé's “If I Were a Boy” to tell everyone how self-absorbed I think memoirs are. [1] “Have you ever noticed,” I’ll say, “how a memoir pretty much makes out with the first person pronoun?”

To which my wife will usually say something like, “Have you ever noticed that you write two blogs?”

And I admit she has a point. Even now, as I’m trying to write a book review, I’m using it to make out with the first person pronoun. So I’m just as guilty as the average memoirist, except I don’t have to travel anywhere to use the first person pronoun, which is really my biggest beef with memoirists anyway. I hate how they always have to go somewhere.[2]

But enough about me.[3] Let’s get back to my review.

Memoir is a tricky genre. For me, it too often comes off as a contrived effort at saying something universal—something “deeply profound” and “moving”—all while quarantined within the tiny confines of a hall-of-mirrors. I know this isn’t always the case, but it often seems that way in a post-Eat, Pray, Love world.

So, up until a few days ago, I was unsure how I was going to take Jana Riess’s Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking theSabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor (Paraclete Press, 2011). On the one hand, I have a lot of respect for Riess’s scholarly work, which I first encountered while researching an essay on Mormonism and Twilight.[4] Also, Riess is from Cincinnati, my hometown, which doesn’t hurt her Low-Tech cred.[5]

(NOTE TO CINCINNATIANS: Skyline Chili reference on page 136)

But smart scholarship and the hometown advantage do not a winning memoir make. For me, a really good memoir needs to be a balance of readability, personality, and authenticity. If it’s severely lacking in any of these areas, I make like the Joad family and move on.[6]

Flunking Sainthood, by the way, is a chronicle of Riess’s attempt at spending a year tackling obscure spiritual practices from a variety of religious traditions. Like other memoirs of this ilk, most notably A. J. Jacobs’s hilarious The Year of Living Biblically, Riess devotes each month to a specific practice, often to the dismay of her family and friends. None of these practices, of course, are as zany as any Jacobs attempts—Riess never tries stoning anyone in Eden Park, for example[7]—but they have their charm. She fasts, avoids shopping, tries lectio divina and Centering Prayer, talks to Jesus while cooking, keeps an extreme Sabbath Day holy, etc. Of course, as the book’s title suggests, she’s never very successful at any of these practices. I wouldn’t say she outright fails at everything. But the book’s called Flunking Sainthood for a reason: It’s one long record of failure.

Except, to be honest, it isn’t that long.

At 179 pages, Flunking Sainthood is a breeze to read. Which is good news for people who have the attention span of a dog or who inhale books like helium. In each chapter, Riess introduces her spiritual practice-of-the-month and then chronicles her failure through droll anecdotes, moments of profundity, and the occasional foray into her past. Best of all, she provides readers with snarky commentary on the various books she uses to guide her along the sainted way. For example, here’s Riess’s take on Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century French Monk, and his book The Practice of the Presence of God:

I hate it that Brother Lawrence sometimes refers to himself in the third person. That may have been a post-Renaissance man’s best shot at appearing humble, but nowadays it comes across as anything but. I’m also bothered by the relentless cheer of Brother Lawrence’s opening pages. I mean, being European in the 1600s was not exactly a cocktail party: there were religious wars, beheadings, and smallpox outbreaks, all compounded by unfriendly realities like an absence of central heating and cable TV. Add to that some of the particular unpleasantness of monastic life: the 3 AM self-flagellations, the throwback medieval spoils system, the often unreasonable abbots who were wealthy second sons with special call to the brotherhood. I’ve watched every episode of Cadfael. I know how it was. (25-26)

It’s snarkiness like this, combined with its manageable length, that makes Flunking Sainthood an incredibly readable book. At the same time, though, I can’t help but feel that Riess’s chapters start to end at the very point when they need to be going that extra mile. I guess because Riess is so funny and sarcastic, I found that I kept wishing that she would keep it going for a few pages more. Also, I often felt that the insights she gained from her failures sometimes came up too abruptly in the book, before I was able to get a good sense of how her monthly spiritual practice went down.

In a perfect world, Flunking Sainthood would be one hundred pages longer. Not because the book seems freakishly stunted or incomplete, but because the personality of the memoirist seems to scream out for more space. Throughout the book, after all, Riess charms the readers with a persona that is at once ironic, world-weary, and wily. Nothing, it seems, is safe from Riessian sarcasm, including her husband, Phil, whom she describes memorably as “a classic DIYer, the kind who would gladly perform his own vasectomy using a Time-Life home surgery manual if he could save a buck” (29).[8] With a description like that one, how could you not want more?

Yet, Riess isn’t always chasing the next punch-line. At times, she can be surprisingly (possible grudgingly) heartfelt about her relationship with God and the ways certain practices, like the Jesus Prayer, help enrich that relationship. She also writes tenderly about a Sabbath Day game of Dogopoly[9] with her daughter, Jerusha, which may or may not have constituted Sabbath breakage.[10] Such passages, I think, provide a nice counterpoint to the memoir’s near-constant humor.

Of course, I’m not without Mormo-centric criticism of the book. Mormon readers will note, for instance, that Flunking Sainthood is not about them.[11] In fact, nowhere in the memoir does Riess let on that the church she keeps talking about, or her conservative “faith tradition,” is of the Mormon persuasion. This is not to say that Mormon readers won’t see themselves between the lines in the book. I mean, they’re pretty conspicuous even without a name (see 22, 138, 142, 150). Take, for instance, Riess’s comments on her church’s prayer practices:

We don’t recite the Lord’s Prayer in our church services, and as far as I know most people don’t do this regularly in family prayer either, though I haven’t exactly conducted polls. I expect that many people in my church are suspicious of “rote” prayers, which smack of Catholicism an might lead to Pharisaic vain repetition. We’re certain that vain repletion will cause dogs and cats to start mating with each other, and that will bring about the end of the world. (142)

If that doesn’t describe the average Mormon’s stance on vain repetition, I don’t know what does. Still, Riess seems hesitant to Mormon up in a book that is obviously designed for a broader Christian audience.

So, is it the right choice for the book?

Probably, since Mormons generally aren’t allowed to write books about Mormonism if they want them to be successful and win over large non-Mormon audiences. So I can’t know for sure, but I imagine that Flunking Sainthood skirts Riess’s Mormonness because a more direct route would only distract readers from the real substance of her memoir, which is her engagement with these more universal Christian practices. Still, I can’t help but feel that this absence of open affiliation adds a touch of inauthenticity to the narrative, as if Riess is holding something back. But maybe I’m being too much of a Mormo-centric critic on this point. Readers of any other faith tradition are not likely to perceive any of this.

I don’t know. I can see both sides of the issue and their individual merits. Mormonism can be a hard ticket to sell, even when it’s not top billing. Plus, as Robert Jeffress has recently noted, Mormonism is a cult anyway and should have no place in a book like this one.

So, what I’m trying to say is that Flunking Sainthood isn’t about flunking Latter-day Sainthood—and that’s okay because Latter-day Saints can still (believe it or not) benefit from reading it and likening it unto themselves and their own personal spiritual practices. Who knows? Maybe the memoir will inspire a few of them to try a little Centering Prayer or some non-vain vain repetition.

At any rate, I enjoyed Flunking Sainthood—even though it ended much too soon. Riess not only has written a memoir that is as fun as it is thought provoking, but she has also avoided the self-absorbed hall-of-mirrors pitfall that tends to plague the genre.[12] While I doubt I’ll ever tackle any of her spiritual experiments, I at least have a greater appreciation for them and those masochists (or failed masochists) who practice them (or try to practice them) on a daily (uh…monthly?) basis.

Note: I received a complimentary review copy of Flunking Sainthood from the publisher.

[1] I should also confess here that I have been known to interrupt my own rendition of Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy" to either a) mock memoir or b) offer a shrewd analysis of Beyoncé’s song.

[2] This is the green-eyed monster speaking through me. I’m fine if people want to travel. I just want them to keep it to themselves until my bank account allows me to travel too. Then I’m all ears—unless they want to tell me about the time they hitchhiked through Europe. Or found solace on the peak of a mountain in Asia. Or ground their own coffee in Colombia.

[3] Which is what memoirists always say when they want to appear humble to their readers. Or so I’ve heard.

[4] An expert on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Riess wrote a review of Twilight for BYU Studies that was, at the time of my research, the only thing written about Twilight and its Mormon connections that was worth its weight in plastic fangs.

[5] I should probably mention here that I’ve never met Riess even though we’re both Mormons in Cincinnati. Here’s the deal: as a city, Cincinnati is split East and West and it is an unwritten rule that East Siders and West Siders never interact except on special occasions, like when the Reds or Bengals are having a great season, which is the same as saying they never interact. But the Church in Cincinnati doesn’t adhere to the East/West dynamic; rather, it splits the city North and South, and North Stakers and South Stakers don’t tend to interact unless maybe when a General Authority is in town. Or, at least, it used to be that way back when Cincinnati only has two stakes. Now that there’s a Cincinnati East Stake, made up of old North Stakers and South Stakers, nothing makes sense any more. Except that North Stakers and South Stakers still don’t talk. Unless some progressive East Staker is willing to act as a kind of mediator.

Incidentally, this is how my sister (a South Staker) and I (a North Staker) are now able to talk after years of silence: my parents (East Stakers) convey messages between us via a complex system of tin cans, strings, pulleys, and carrier pigeons that does not—amazingly—upset the delicate North/South balance.

Riess, by the way, is a South Staker, At least that’s what I gather from my East Stake friends. (Cue the emoticon!) J

[6] “The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement.” The Grapes of Wrath, 444.

[7] Which would be, in a word, awesome. As long as she used foam rocks and apologized later.

[8] By far my favorite line in the entire book.

[9] Monopoly…but with a dog theme.

[10] Is fake money kosher? Is “kosher” even the right word to use in this context?

[11] Let me know if you need to sit down or drink a glass of water.

[12] (cough) Eat (cough) Pray (cough) Love (cough) Julie (cough) & (cough) Julia (cough) …

MMM: "How to Turn Your Mormon Story into a National Bestseller"

2011-10-10T07:19:00.000-04:00

My latest post for Modern Mormon Men is up today. In it I give tips on how to write a national bestseller about Mormons. Having never written a bestseller, or any book for that matter, I'm obviously an expert on the subject.

Here's the link:

"How to Turn Your Mormon Story into a National Bestseller"

Enjoy.

"A Day with Carry Nation"--Nephi Anderson

2011-10-03T19:56:00.002-04:00

Last night I watched the first episode of Ken Burns's most recent PBS documentary, Prohibition, which recounted in brief the history of Carry Nation, one of the more colorful teetotalers of American history.

Here's Nephi Anderson's humorous account of meeting Nation on a train. A longer version of it was first published in The Improvement Era in 1911.

A Day With CarryNation.

By Nephi Anderson,Author of "Added Upon," "The Castle Builder,""Daughter of the North," Etc.

We left Kansas City for the West on the evening of September17, 1906. The train was belated, and we found ourselves next morning rollingslowly over the rain-soaked plains of Kansas. As the morning advanced there wasa general awakening among the passengers, an adjustment of chairs and themaking of toilets, in which Elder Delbert Stanger and I took part. We werereturning "Mormon" missionaries. Elder Stanger had labored inAustralia, and was coming home by way of Europe, thus making a complete tour ofthe world. We had been companions from Liverpool.

Directly across the aisle from us sat a "striking"looking woman. She was large, both in bone and muscle. Her dress was severelyblack, and when she had readjusted her toilet for the day she had on a small,Quaker-looking, black bonnet. Her black hair was sprinkled generously withgray. Her nose was rather small and sunken, but she had a prominent lower jaw,and lips that indicated the firmness of a vise. When she talked, which she wasnot timid in doing, it was in a high, clear voice that could be heard in allparts of the car. She attracted our attention from the first.

Presently every one in the car was startled by the womanstanding on her feet, and repeating in a loud voice one of the psalms of David.After the recitation, she spoke for a few minutes by way of praise unto theLord. Then she said, "Let us pray," and kneeling by her seat sheuttered a prayer that could be heard in every part of the car. Then she aroseto her feet again, and by way of explanation to the astonished passengers, shesaid, "I give my first and best efforts to God."

As we were still wondering what it all meant, we saw thewoman take from her hand-bag a number of papers, go forward to the front of thecar, turn to the passengers and thus address them:

"I am Carry Nation. I have copies of my paper, The Hatchet, which I sell for fivecents. The newspapers of this country have abused me and misrepresented me, andI am publishing this paper in self-defense. Each paper bears my signature, andyou may say you got it from Carry Nation herself. No one seems to know how tospell my name. It is C-a-r-r-y, not C-a-r-r-i-e, as you will see."

Then she came down the aisle, and readily disposed of herpapers.

After a time I began conversation with her across the aisle.I asked her how the work of prohibition was prospering, and we talkedpleasantly on kindred subjects for some time. Then I handed her my card, I mustsay, not without some fear.

"You are a 'Mormon' are you?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"Well," she said, "there are some good peopleamong the 'Mormons,' of course; but polygamy damns you all."

Just then, to my great relief, a party of four or five youngmen came in from another car. They had heard that the saloon smasher was on thetrain, and they came to see. They stopped by Mrs. Nation's seat and shook handswith her, as if they were acquaintances. Some of them had been drinkingalready, and it did not take long for Mrs. Nation to discover the fact. Thenshe denounced them roundly, which the young fellows took good-naturedly enough.

***

After the crowd had left, she came back at Elder Stanger andme. Perhaps she had to have it out of somebody after that mean trick the youngfellow had played on her, and here were two "Mormons" within arm'sreach. She pounced on us vigorously, talking loudly and boldly about the"Mormons" and their "vile practices." We did not wish toenter into a discussion with her, but she at last forced us to say something indefense. All in the car knew by this time that their stock of curiosities hadbeen augmented by the addition of two "real, live, 'Mormon' elders,"so they crowded around us to enjoy the novel spectacle. As Mrs. Nation wildlydenounced us, she flourished a large Bible, which she said was the only hatchetshe now used. I referred her to a few passages in her Hatchet, and asked her toread them, which she did. But she launched out again in a stream of talk. Itwas impossible to hold her to a given point until that was disposed of. Shewould fly from one topic to another with lightning rapidity. And how she didtalk! Her words came in a continuous stream, loud and strong. Whenever I could"get in a word edgewise," which was not often, I spoke in a moderatetone; therefore the people in the farther end of the car came nearer to listen.I gave up trying to say anything. We were literally beaten down by the force ofwords, and at last, when there was a calm in the storm so that I could beheard, I called the listeners' attention to the fact that it was not our faultthat Mrs. Nation's statements were not answered. We could not talk against awhirlwind, we said, or against a Kansas tornado.

She quieted a little then, and I talked for a few minuteswithout interruption, explaining the doctrines and position of the Latter-daySaints on the topics under discussion. The passengers listened attentively, andsome of them expressed their approval of what we said. But Mrs. Nation showedher utter contempt for us by her non-attention. Then she became sarcastic, andI fear, I made a mistake by retaliating in kind. However, the"Mormons" tried to take it all good-naturedly. We had taken part intoo many such adventures to be very much discomfited at this one. Mrs. Nationhad been in Utah, and had been accorded the privilege of speaking in theTabernacle, but this did not seem to count in the "Mormons"' favor.In fact, she was very ignorant of Utah affairs, for she spoke of the women ofUtah as slaves. "Why," she exclaimed, "you 'Mormons' deny therights of the priesthood to your women!"

We tried to explain.

"I should like to see a man try to bring a second wifeto me," she said in no uncertain tones. "I'd fix him!"

"I can well believe it, Mrs. Nation," said I.

It was afternoon before the storm of discussion quieted. Ichanged seats with Elder Stanger, and after a time he and Mrs. Nation begantalking. He told her of his missionary experiences in Australia, and shelistened quietly. He spoke of how the Lord had blessed him and answered hisprayers, and how his testimony that God lives had been made strong by theexperiences through which he had passed. I had doubted whether there was inthis strange, strong woman a particle of that finer feeling which naturally isa part of woman's nature; but when I listened to the conversation between ElderStanger and her, I discovered that I was wrong in my doubts. As she listened tomy companion, I noticed a softer expression come into the hard face, and asshe, too, talked of how the Lord had been good to her, there was a mildness inher voice. Then I thought, "What an incomprehensibly odd mixture humannature is!" And again, "How wonderful it is that the Lord uses everyodd mixture for his own good purpose! Here was Mrs. Carry Nation, eccentric,coarse, foolish in her ways, prejudiced, making herself ridiculous in the eyesof mildly-mannered people, and yet a force which set the people of Kansas andsurrounding states to thinking in earnest about their condition in letting thesaloon and whisky be their master. Was she not doing her work in the world? Itmay not be the way I or you would do such work, but who shall say that CarryNation's way was not the best for the particular time and place?"

It was time for lunch in the car. We got out our meagrebread and butter, and Mrs. Nation opened a package of tempting sandwiches. Idon't know whether she saw our scanty store, or our greedy eyes told on us, butI suppose her mother-heart was touched, and so she offered to share with us.

" 'If thine enemy hunger,' " she quoted, as shehanded a sandwich over to us.

"Mrs. Nation," I replied good-naturedly, "ifthat applies to me, I shall not take it. I am not your enemy. I wouldn't objectto your smashing every saloon in the land."

She laughed. "I was joking," she said.

"Then I accept your kindness with thanks," Ireplied.

The sandwiches were delicious.

Low-Tech Tweets

2011-10-02T11:58:00.000-04:00

The Low-Tech World is now on Twitter.

That means you can now see how much I can say about Mormon literature in 140 characters or less.

I tried Twitter once before. It was a failure. Mostly, it was me. Not Twitter. I wrote about it here:

http://low-techworld.blogspot.com/2009/09/twitter-is-lame-with-capital-tweet.html

I'm hoping to do more with my Twitter account this time around than simply updating my followers whenever I read Ovid or post something on this blog. Most of what I have to say about Mormon literature never ends up in a blog post, so I'm planning to use Twitter to get some of those ideas out there. Kind of like deleted scenes from a movie, but more entertaining.

So, I think you should follow me: http://twitter.com/TheLowTechWorld

A Low-Tech Man in a Modern Mormon World...

2011-09-28T22:37:00.000-04:00

This week I became an official Modern Mormon Man.

That's right. In addition to this blog and Fenimore's Ghost, I will be writing for the group blog Modern Mormon Men. My first post as a permanent contributor went up today. It's entitled "Why I Read Realistic Mormon Literature."

If you haven't already been there, I recommend checking out Modern Mormon Men. And not only because I'm part of the team. It is a great place to go for thoughtful and funny posts on Mormon culture and life. Since I've been following the blog, it has also tackled a variety of contemporary issues currently on the minds of Latter-day Saints from a number of different angles. So, check it out. I'm excited to be a part of it.

Forgive My Momentary Bursts of Cultural Envy; or, Why Mormon Literature Needs Its Own Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

2011-09-27T20:32:00.001-04:00

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of books by African-Americans to prepare for my qualifying exams next year. Somehow I got through high school and college without ever having to read Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man or Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. So I get to read them now along with Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Hannah Crafts’ The Bondwoman’s Narrative, Frances Harper’s Iola Leroy, and many others. Over the next two weeks I’ll be tackling four or five more African-American titles until I move on to something else.

So I haven’t had a whole lot of time to think about Mormon literature. Except when I get these momentary bursts of cultural envy for what scholars of African-American literature and history have been able to do with African-American literature. Not only have they promoted great twentieth-century works, like those of Hurston and Morrison, through diligent critical attention, but they have also poked around the nineteenth century and turned up some fantastic “lost” novels written by forgotten African-American writers.

Henry LouisGates, Jr. is the name that keeps popping up in my studies. Aside from tossing the phrase “SignifyingMonkey” into the stewpot of American literary criticism, and appearing often on PBS and Oprah, he is best known for his discovery of The Bondwoman’s Narrative and Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig, two of the earliest African-American novels written.

Essentially, what Gates and others have done is uncover—and, in some instances, reconstruct—a rich tradition of African-American literature where once none existed in any clear form. Thanks to their work with nineteenth-century African-American texts, we can now see the literary DNA that contributed to the genetic make-up of the last sixty years of African-American literature.

In the world of Mormon literature, we’ve got a similar endeavor going on in Ben Crowder’sMormon Texts Project, which seeks to resurrect previously published Mormon writing from before 1923. So far, the project has only released one work of fiction—B. H. Roberts’ Corianton—but its website shows that more are on the way. Already in the queue are Orson F. Whitney’s long poem Elias: An Epic of the Ages and Emmeline B. Wells’ historical novel Hephzibah.

Of these two, Hephzibah interests me the most. It takes place in Nauvoo and features one of the earliest representations of Joseph Smith in fiction, so it’s a forerunner of novels like Virginia Sorensen’s A Little Lower than the Angels and Orson Scott Card’s Saints. I haven’t read it yet, but I look forward to the day its made available on the Mormon Texts Project website, where all title are free.

Crowder and the Mormon Texts Project volunteers are providing a valuable service for future Mormon literary studies. If you are looking for some way to promote Mormon literature, and don't want to write a guest post for this blog, volunteering for the Mormon Texts Project is one way to do it. It may not be as eternally rewarding as, say, FamilySearch Indexing, but it’s important work all the same.

Of course, the Mormon Texts Project is only doing half of what Gates has done for African-American literature. For while it’s great that we are gaining easy access to all of these lost texts, their value is only so much unless we read, talk, and write about them in a way that makes them relevant to today’s Latter-day Saints and their literature. Such efforts, I'm sure, would uncover the hidden double helices of literary DNA binding contemporary Mormon literature with its largely forgotten roots.

Some are already underway, in fact. Next year, Peculiar Pages will publish an edition of Nephi Anderson’s Dorian that contains several recent critical essays about the novel. These essays, written by a new generation of Mormon literary scholars, promise to invigorate a dialogue about the novel that’s been all but silent since the early 1920s. With any luck, the dialogue won’t stop there.

Other important work is being done. Ardis E. Parshall’s blog Keepapitchinin’ routinely publishes lost Mormon fiction and poems from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and provides readers an opportunity to comment on them. The texts aren’t always the brightest spots in Mormonism’s literary past, but they have value and charm.

Mormon literary scholarship is decades—possibly centuries—away from where African-American literary scholarship now comfortably sits. What we need to do is step up the efforts, work on projects that matter, and keep moving forward. If you are a budding scholar, and you think it would be cool to study Mormon lit, go ahead and take the plunge. Even if your worried about the relative newness of the field.

Mormon lit needs you and your brain.

True, you would probably have an easier time finding a job as a Poe or Sylvia Plath scholar. True, there aren’t that many people today who read or care about Mormon literature. True, no Mormon lit scholar will ever be as famous as Henry Louis Gates. Or chat it up with Oprah on a routine basis. Or have a beer with Obama on the White House lawn.

But the world doesn’t need another Poe or Plath scholar. It has plenty of those. And Obama has enough people to drink with. And you probably don’t drink beer anyway.

So take the plunge. The world needs more Mormon lit scholars.

Props, Anonymous. Props.

2011-09-22T08:07:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, when I reviewed Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry, I made mention of the highly-anticipated collection of contemporary Mormon poetry, Fire in the Pasture, which will soon be available to readers like you and me. It promises to be the most important piece of Mormon lit published this year.

I also may have mentioned that poetry and I aren't the best of friends.

It wasn't always that way. Once upon a time, in a town called Rexburg, I used to retreat to my room, turn on Bob Seger's Greatest Hits (I kid you not), and write poems about snowfall and girls who didn't like me. I also had dreams of becoming a successful poet.

This was before I learned that there is no such thing as a successful poet.

Perhaps my best poem from that era was this one. In it I mock Billy Collins, who was poet laureate at the time. Everyone in Rexburg seemed to have a crush on the guy.

Imitating Billy Collins

“Nobody else today writes quite like Collins, and few

indeed write any better.”

X. J. Kennedy

I think I’ll imitate Billy Collins for a while,

becoming the Poet Laureate of my apartment

through small, accessible stanzas almost lost

among bookshelves and dirty dishes.

I’ll start off with a poem about a hunting catalog

instead of Victoria’s Secret, asking

my imagined reader why the hunter chose

to wear the neon orange instead of the leafy cammo

as he reclined in the handy light-weight

camping chair. Then, after I become bored

with that train of thought, I’ll explore the intimate

details of Dish and the Spoon’s illicit elopement

in the not-so-tiny darkness of the china cabinet

as I chop cucumbers and listen to Bruce Springsteen,

who, as far as I know, never sang a song

about a nursery rhyme. If that fails, I’ll write

about turning ten-and-a-half or create a form

called the perpendicularnelle.

Maybe, if I’m feeling particularly daring, I’ll

undress Elizabeth Barrett Browning instead of Emily

Dickinson, counting the ways I make

her husband jealous as I take this liberty

with his Portuguese in all the depth and breadth

and height my soul can reach.

By the afternoon I’ll be a true poet, looking

out of my study window as I write a poem

about my polka face or what I thought about

this morning as I ate my breakfast

in the unmodified silence of my kitchen.

I imagine this will continue until evening,

when my first original thought of the day will come

in a flash of (picnic) lightning--just as I begin

to dream about Buddha beckoning with a snow shovel.

Later, I lost interest in poetry. I think it happened on a day when I heard someone read a poem and groan over its "luscious" L's. I'm not a fan of the word "luscious," particularly when it is applied to a letter in the alphabet that has no inherent lusciousness about it. And the groaning didn't help either. It just made me want to buy mouthwash.

I have written Mormon poetry, but I never published a good Mormon poem. I did publish a lousy Mormon poem in the student literary journal at BYU-Idaho. It wasn't the worst poem in the collection, but I wouldn't be bothered if every copy of the journal spontaneously combusted.

My only real personal connection to published Mormon poetry is this poem, which Clinton F. Larson, the Father of Contemporary Mormon Poetry, wrote for BYU's centennial celebration. It was inspired by my great-grandfather, Wayne B. Hales, who was a long-time physics professor at BYU. In fact, if you ever take a science class at BYU, it is possible that you will take it in a lecture hall named after him.

This was the case with me when I took a basic chemistry class. Except I didn't spend a whole lot of time in the lecture hall since I quit attending class after the third day. Attendance wasn't technically required and I couldn't understand half of what the adjunct professor was saying anyway. So, I taught myself chemistry and ended up with a satisfactory B.

At any rate, the following poem was written for the BYU centennial and later published in a book appropriately (if not redundantly) called Centennial Portraits: Brigham Young University Centennial, 1975-1976: Poems.

Ethereal
Wayne B. Hales
by Clinton F. Larson

Prize faith that tapers like a spire,
Becoming nothing that one can see
Among myths that flower and aspire
To polarize themselves in higher air
As ethereal meaning that ought to be

Less hypothetical and rare.
What else might their advocates expect?
Why should not the holiest defect?
See how every steeple tapers away,
Inspiring, though some folk stray

From useful faith with conversions
That conceal the gloss of diversions.
But others softly give themselves
Into peace where wishing delves
Like starlight into quiet thought.

Sadly, "Ethereal" is not a good poem. I have read it several times, but Larson always loses me at "To polarize themselves in higher air." Still, it is nice to be able to say that Clinton F. Larson wrote a poem about my great-grandfather--even if I've never been able to make much sense of it.

Incidentally, my great-grandfather figured into a poem I wrote back when I was still at BYU. I was reading his autobiography and came to a section where he reflects on what it was like to grow up in a polygamous home. Basically, he wasn't a fan of the institution since it left his mother alone a lot of the time. So, I sat down and wrote this:

Polygamy

My third great grandfather

married a second wife in 1856, assured

by Reformation and the promises

of the Brethren. She was nineteen, young

enough to be his daughter. They lived man

and wife and wife in Big Cottonwood

until the crickets came early, the seagulls

too late. By 1870 the wives had neighboring houses

in Spanish Fork: signs of a growing family,

not necessarily discontent. The institution seemed

to work for them. Though family lore is always

suspect, mine provides an image of a road

and three travelers. One generation later

tells a different story: What my great-grandfather

remembers was not one road, but two cities,

two families. His father, a miner in Eureka,

never knew a world without polygamy;

he was but an occasional visitor, a near stranger

to the small home on Center Street.

So my great-great-grandmother, needless

to say, was always alone, always

waiting with her children at the post

office or train station, endlessly anticipating

arrivals, accumulating disappointments.

It's not a good poem either, but I have fond memories of writing it. And mostly, I feel bad that poetic tributes to my great-grandfather, who died a few months after I was born, haven't been any better. He seems to have been a great man and an excellent teacher. I've never met anyone--in the family or out--who has had anything bad to say about him.

One of his students, however, did write this poem, which was given to him anonymously. It beats out all the other poems in this post.

Physics Psalm

I have a physics teacher,

I shall not pass.

He maketh me to show my

Ignorance before the class.

He giveth me more than I can learn.

He lowereth my grade.

Yea, though I walk through the

Valley of Knoledge, I do not learn.

He fireth questions at me

In the presence of my classmates.

HE annoiteth my head with problems.

My eyes runneth over.

Surely thermometers, barometers, and cyclometers

Shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I shall dwell in Physics 137 forever.

In his autobiography, my great-grandfather had this to say about the poem: "I told the class that this anonymous, who had a mind keen enough to write this kind of poetry, surely has it in him or her to get a 'B' grade, at least, in this course."

Which was more than he had to say about "Ethereal."

Props, Anonymous. Props.

500 Words on the "Nine Old Men of Mormon Literary Criticism"

2011-09-16T08:16:00.003-04:00

Serious Mormon literary criticism began sometime in the twentieth century, possibly with Dale L. Morgan’s article “Mormon Storytellers” from the Fall 1942 issue of Rocky Mountain Review. Essentially, the article is a status update on the progress of Mormon literature, listing titles of dozens of novels that had been published by Mormon authors or written on Mormon subjects since 1881. It also acts as an extended review of several novels now lumped together as examples of “Mormondom’s Lost Generation.”

Morgan, of course, never applied the term “Lost Generation” to these novels. It wasn’t coined until 1977, when BYU professor Edward A. Geary applied it to the Mormon writers who grew up during “a transitional time in Mormon country” and wrote about the Church with varying degrees of disillusionment. At the time, Geary was one of a handful of Mormon academics who were willing to take Mormon literature seriously enough to write about it. Spurred along by the newly formed Association for Mormon Letters and its annual conference—not to mention the publishing venues of Dialogue, Sunstone, BYU Studies, and even the Ensign—these critics tirelessly established a framework and vocabulary for future Mormon literary studies.

Lately, I’ve taken to thinking about these critics as the “Nine Old Men of Mormon Literary Criticism,” probably due to my on-again/off-again reading of Neal Gabler’s Walt Disney. The moniker, however, is imprecise and problematic since one of them is female. Still, I hold to the name since I think it speaks to how so much of early Mormon literary criticism is written from the point-of-view of male readers who had been trained in the academy before feminism became an influential force.

The “Nine” are as follows: Lavina Fielding Anderson, Richard H. Cracroft, Eugene England, Edward A. Geary, Bruce W. Jorgensen, Karl Keller, Neal E. Lambert, William Mulder, and Levi S. Peterson.

Over the last five or six years, I have run into each of these critics in my research into Mormon literature. At times, I have been grateful for their insight; occasionally, I have disagreed vehemently with them or complained about their cynicism or tendency to generalize. In writing my own Mormon literary criticism, I have even felt a small degree of Oedipal rage against Cracroft, England, Geary, and Keller when their ideas have seemed so contradictory to mine. Many have been the times I’ve tried to kill Cracroft with a pen.

Yet, like a true critic with an Oedipus complex, I love the “Nine” as much as I hate them. Such ambivalence is healthy and absolutely necessary to keep a critical tradition going. While I have not always agreed with their classifications, terminologies, and conclusions, I have always benefited from the foundation they laid during a time when Mormon literary studies seemed like a busted pipe dream. Now that the “Nine” are mostly retired (or dead), my hope is that their legacy will continue, that a new critical generation—numbering far more than nine—will pick up the slack and continue their work.

I Make a Pact with You, Sister Snow: A Review of "Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poems"

2011-09-09T00:27:00.002-04:00

Over the past two years or so I’ve become an unwitting fan of nineteenth-century literature. During my undergraduate English studies, which began ten years ago this week, I was more interested in reading Medieval epics and William Faulkner than anything by Poe, Hawthorne, or Melville. Not much changed during the two years of my MA program, except that I stopped reading Dante and Chaucer and started reading more contemporary American and Mormon fiction. Even in my spare time, which was rare, I never picked up anything literary written before 1920.[1]

This changed when I started my Ph.D. and took two seminars on nineteenth-century American literature—one on the American Romantics, the other on women writers—that left me wondering why no one had clued me in on the poetry of Emily Dickinson and stories like Hawthorne’s “Roger Malvin’s Burial,” Poe’s “Hop-Frog,” and Melville’s “Bartleby.”

Now, one-third of the texts I’m reading for my Ph.D. qualifying exams are Nineteenth-century American literary texts. My dissertation, of course, will still be on Mormon fiction, and contemporary American fiction will probably remain my primary area of expertise, but I’m actively looking into ways to make nineteenth-century America and its literature a more significant part of my research and studies. I mean, I like to keep my options open.[2]

I bring this up because I am yet to catch the nineteenth-century Mormon literature bug.[3] I have tried—earnestly—to get excited about it, but every time I pick up a poem by Parley P. Pratt, Orson F. Whitney, or John Lyon I get about half-way through it before I lose all consciousness in my brain and experience temporary paralysis in every fiber of my being.[4]

So, it is with some reluctance that I review this massive volume lying open on the floor beside me, Jill Mulvay Derr and Karen Lynn Davidson’s Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry (Brigham Young University Press, 2009). I have neither read the entire book—I don’t know how anyone ever could—nor do I ever hope to. Part of this, I expect, has to do with my ambivalence toward poetry in general. While I have been known to write the occasional poem,[5] I don’t read much of it any more. Fiction is my thing. Poetry is more of a hobby.

Also, Sister Snow—even at her best—doesn’t really write the kind of poetry I like. In fact, no one in the nineteenth century, with the exception of maybe Emily Dickinson and a few other abnormalities, writes the kind of poetry I like.[6] For a reader like me, therefore, the value of a book like Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry is not in the poetry itself, but rather in the work of the editors.

In this respect, Eliza R. Snow shines. Not only does the introductory essay by Derr and Davidson provide an insightful, honest analysis of Snow’s talent, as well as a thorough overview of her life, but it also introduces each of its nine chapters and all 507 of its poems with commentary that is both impressive and essential for anyone who wishes to gain a deeper appreciation for Snow’s work.

One insight, for instance, that I have found most useful in my haphazard reading of the poems is Derr and Davidson’s observation that “Snow’s well-known public role [as “Zion’s poet laureate] complicated and sometimes obscured her self-expression.” Unlike Dickinson, in other words, whose poetry is often marked by the painful nakedness and intense interiority of its narrative voice, Snow, tightly buttoned, keeps her readers at more than arm’s length. Indeed, as Derr and Davidson note, “Contemporary readers” are not likely to warm up to Sister Snow and her poems because her apparent “reluctance to allow a personal, lyric, truly revealing voice to break through the persona of Zion’s Poetess” sometimes makes for chilly reading (xvi).[7]

Of course, reading their commentary on Snow’s poetry, it is clear that Derr and Davidson have great affection for Zion’s Poetess, although they readily acknowledge that not all of Snow’s poetry is of the highest aesthetic quality. “No poet’s reputation,” they write, “is likely to benefit from the publication of that poet’s complete works” (xv). This is certainly the case, for example, when you read a poem like “Lines, on the Death of Bishop N. K. Whitney” (#206), which begins

A mighty man, a man of worth,

A father and a friend,

Has left the narrow sphere of earth

His upward course to wend.

and limps along dismally until its predictable conclusion:

The stroke is with a heavy rod—

But while our hearts deplore

His loss, we’ll own the hand of God,

That God whom we adore. (404-405)

With poems like this in the mix, Derr and Davidson do a great service to their subject by reminding readers that “Snow deserves—as does any poet—to be judged by her best poems” (xv).[8] That means, of course, that readers are going to have to sift through a lot of Snow’s lesser poems—the trite memorial or missionary farewell pieces—to get at the heart of this book.

Obviously, tried-and-true Snow poems, like “My Father in Heaven” [“O My Father”] (#152) and “Sacramental Hymn” [“How great the wisdom and the love”] (#433), resonate with readers because of their enduring place as hymns in Latter-day Saint worship services. Other poems, like “Your Portrait” (#104), make up for their mediocre construction with keen observations, clever arguments, and unique views into nineteenth-century life. Snow, after all, wasn’t always a great poet, but she had a lot of important things to say about the big issues of her day. In fact, some of her most energetic—and surprising—poems are venomous responses to the United States government and its anti-polygamy crusade of the 1860s, 70s, and 80s:

My Country, O, my Country! My heart bleeds for thee—I mourn

thy corruption and degradation—thy glory has departed—thy fame

is extinguished—thy peace and honor, swindled; and “the dear old

flag” which once floated in glorious majesty, is now slowly and

solemnly undulating at half mast, as a requiem of thy departed

liberty, which thou has sacrificed on the shrine of political

emolument. (“My Country—A Lamentation,” [#424], 816)[9]

In their introduction, Derr and Davidson wisely direct readers to the best of Eliza R. Snow, poems like “A Winter Soliloquy” (#426), “Narcissa to Narcissus” (#51), “To Mrs. Heywood” (#231), and “My First View of a Western Prairie” (#433). For what it’s worth, my recommendation is that readers open the book at random and read until they find something that catches them. Out of 507 poems, readers are bound to find a few they like.

Admittedly, my opinion of nineteenth-century Mormon poetry is not likely to change in the years to come, yet I am glad to have Eliza R. Snow on my bookshelf. As the only complete collection of Snow’s poetry, it is an invaluable resource for those, like me, who take Mormon literature seriously. Additionally, the fine editorial work of Derr and Davidson make it one of the more significant published contributions to Mormon literary studies in recent years. With any luck, a few enthusiastic graduate students with interests in Mormon poetry will get their hands on it and build upon the conversations Derr and Davidson have graciously begun within its pages.

Post Script: Speaking of Mormon poetry, I was pleased today to see that the cover of the latest anthology of Mormon poetry, Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-first Century Mormon Poets, was released by its publisher, Peculiar Pages. If the fetching William Blake-esque cover is any indicator of the poetry contained therein, it promises to improve upon the great legacy of Sister Snow. I look forward to reading and reviewing it.

[1] Unless you count the scriptures, of course.

[2] If you’re interested in my work on the ways the nineteenth century and the twentieth and twenty-first centuries intersect, check out my other blog, Fenimore’s Ghost.

[3] This is kind of ironic since most of the research I’ve done on contemporary Mormon literature—none of which I have published—looks back on nineteenth-century Mormon history. In fact, if everything goes according to plan—and I say this as a kind of teaser—nineteenth-century Mormon history will play a nice supporting role in my dissertation. Mormon literature from that time, however, will not.

[4] For this reason, I’ve made it a point never to read Elias: An Epic of the Ages and walk at the same time.

[5] But never an occasional poem.

[6] For the sake of full disclosure, I should mention here that I once had a dream in which I was caught in a love triangle involving both Emily Dickinson and Eliza R. Snow. I was an undergraduate at the time, probably taking an American literature survey, so try not to judge me too harshly. Since dreams have a way of not ending in any clear manner, I can’t remember who won out. I do remember, though, that Sister Snow’s hair was removable and made of the same material as a wasp’s nest. Analyze that.

[7] I’m resisting the temptation to evoke the surname of Zion’s Poetess here and make a pun bad enough to rival that used in Windows of Heaven, the short 1963 film about Eliza’s younger brother, Lorenzo, who became president of the LDS Church in 1898. In the film—if my memory is correct—President Snow (that is, the actor playing President Snow) cracks a smile behind his fake beard and says something like, “It will take more than a little sun to melt this snow!” I’ve probably botched the line, but you get the idea.

[8] Having written my own share of dismal poems, I tend to agree with the editors.

[9] Should you continue on with this poem, you will find that Sister Snow warns the U.S.A. that “a day of retribution awaits thee.” And this was after the Civil War.

Do We Need to Keep Talking about the Roach?

2011-09-01T16:37:00.005-04:00

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about this classic Mormonad. It’s a variation on a common message about the dangers of inappropriate content in media. Whoever came up with the image was a genius. As bugs go, I can handle a fly or an ant in my ice cream. Heck, I might even eat it for the glory of being able to say that I have. But a roach is another thing. They gross me out. I’d rather shake hands with a praying mantis than eat a roach.

And praying mantises freak the crap out of me.

Genius aside, though, I’m not entirely persuaded by the ad’s argument. I mean, logically, I know that the roach isn't big enough to contaminate all of the ice cream. If I was on a desert island, and the roach-infested ice cream was the only thing around that could keep me alive, I wouldn't hesitate to flick the roach away and eat the ice cream. Doing otherwise would be wasting a whole lot of ice cream.

Of course, I realize that I’m missing the point. The ad is trying to say that even a little offensive content spoils the media and should be enough to make you want to steer clear of it. It's a simple, effective visual argument. But at the same time, I can’t help reading the ad a different way. What happens if you focus on the good stuff (i.e. the ice cream) rather than the bad stuff (i.e. the roach)? Couldn’t the image also suggest that you shouldn’t let a little bug ruin a otherwise good dessert?

***

I know. I know. This is a tired issue. Nothing I’ve said in the previous four paragraphs is original or revolutionary. In fact, as opinions go on this issue, those expressed above are rather clichéd. Anyone who has ever tried to defend realism in Mormon literature has already expressed them in one way or another.

***

Sadly, the appropriateness of content is one of those topics that will be forever discussed among Mormon artists. A few years ago, when I first started writing papers about Mormon literature, I too got caught in the snare of the content debate—mostly because it has been had so many times at conferences and symposiums on Mormon lit. Everyone—from Richard Cracroft to Bruce Jorgensen to Orson Scott Card to Gideon Burton—seems to have written an essay on the issue. So, when I started work on my master’s thesis on Mormon historical fiction, I thought that I needed to write about it as well—even though it had nothing to do with what I wanted to say about Mormon historical fiction.

I ended up wasting a lot of time.

Admittedly, as an undergraduate English major who was somewhat squeamish about realistic content in art, I appreciated these essays because they helped me learn how to be a Mormon reader of contemporary literature. But the time I wasted trying to contribute to the debate led me to realize that I have very little interest in writing an essay about defining offensive content. I’ve found my own way through the issue, and I’d hate to presume that my way applies to someone else.

As I see it, discussions over what is or is not appropriate content do little more than distract readers from more important literary discussions. As a critic, I want to examine aspects of the text that will open it up, not shut it down. My experience is that conversations about the appropriate use of four-letter words, violence, or sex keep more insightful conversations from happening. Ultimately, for Mormon criticism to be useful to Mormon literature, it will need to stop obsessing about whether or not the stupid roach belongs in the ice cream.

It’s there or it's not!

Get over it!

Talk about the whipped cream FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

***

(For the record, I’ve always preferred the “poop brownies” analogy to the “bug in the ice-cream” scenario. It’s much less ambiguous—and probably more helpful in the long run for conversations about content in media. )

Teaching Dispensation: An Update

2011-08-22T13:30:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I received the okay to teach a ten week 200-level lit class called "American Religious Landscapes." I'll be teaching it during the Spring 2012 quarter. Since the end of the world isn't scheduled until December of 2012, the class should go off as planned.

Obviously, I'm most looking forward to the week I'll be teaching Mormon short stories. I still intend to make Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction one of the required texts, although I might bring in .pdfs of stories published and archived by Dialogue as well. Of the thirty-some stories in the anthology, I plan on using nine. I haven't selected which ones to use yet. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

I definitely plan on using Levi Peterson's "Brothers," Douglas Thayers "Wolves," and Angela Hallstrom's "Thanksgiving." I also think it would be important to bring in Orson Scott Card and Brady Udall since both of them publish nationally, but I want to go through the book again with the class in mind. I think I need to find stories that reflect the way Mormonism plays out across landscapes and in communities, but not in a way that is only recognizable to people very aware of the religion and its culture. In other words, I want highly accessible stories that show Mormonism's basic imprint on the land and its people.

Aside from Dispensation, I also plan on using C. Michael Curtis's fiction anthology God: Stories, which has many stories depicting Protestantism and Judaism. I also intend to give the class some ideas to talk about with Timothy Beal's non-fiction Religion in America: A Very Short Introduction (which, sadly, has very little to say about Mormonism).

Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find, Toni Morrison's Paradise, Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, and maybe one other novel or short story collection might also become required reading for the class, but I haven't made any sort of final selection. Right now I'm also in the market for a good fiction written by an American Muslim that depicts Islam in America. So far I haven't come up with much. If you have any recommendations, let me know.

If you'd like to know how the class develops, I'll post occasional updates. It should be an interesting experience.

Flooding the Bloggernacle with Mormon Literature...?

2011-08-18T07:18:00.002-04:00

Recently on A Motley Vision, Wm Morris suggested that Mormon literature advocates are potentially looking beyond the mark when they strive after “literary respectability.” For him—and I hope I’m representing his point accurately—such a pursuit is misguided because any respectability Mormon literature could gain from, say, a national audience or a literary establishment would have to come at a price, namely a willingness to be co-opted by the establishment “for its own purposes,” whatever they may be.

As I see it, this observation implies a few things. First, it suggests that Mormon literature, to be wholeheartedly embraced by the literary powers-that-be, has to be willing to be used politically, much like other minority literatures are sometimes used politically by the establishment, to convey a certain openness or multiculturalism that may or may not actually exist in the establishment itself. In other words, it implies that practitioners of Mormon literature must be willing to let the literary establishment pat its own back on their account.

The observation likewise suggests that Mormon literature must be willing to become what is accepted as respectable by the establishment, which also means that it must be willing to change whatever there is about it that is not acceptable. To gain respectability, that is, Mormon literature has to be be willing to justify itself to the literary world by becoming a kind of Mormon version of what already exists in the establishment—a Mormon Shakespeare or Milton or Roth or Morrison.[i]

With respectability, therefore, Mormon literature risks achieving a kind of Pyrrhic victory: on the one hand, it gains recognition and admiration; on the other, it becomes another literature colonized by the new canon—a compromised literature forced to masquerade as authentic.[ii]

Overall, I tend to agree with Morris on his assessment of the current price of respectability: to make Mormon literature respectable and accessible to the establishment (I don’t see how you could have one without the other) Mormon literature would have to make some changes. Especially if you want it right away.

Look at the examples of The 19^th Wife and The Lonely Polygamist. Also take a look at Big Love, The Book of Mormon, and Angels in America. Each of these works is about Mormonism, in one way or another, and has managed to achieve critical acclaim and respectability on a national scale—certainly more so than any novel ever published by a Mormon press, including Deseret Books.

The message seems clear: if you want your Mormon stories to be taken seriously by the establishment, then they have to either depict non-traditional sexualities (at least in the mainstream Mormon community) or cast Mormonism, with its magical Kolobian underwear, as a big joke.[iii]

If you disagree, show me an example that proves otherwise.[iv]

Don't get me wrong: I’m not saying that polygamy and homosexuality aren’t important issues in contemporary Mormonism. Nor am I saying that they are inappropriate for Mormon literature. [v] What I am saying, though, is that they’re not the only issues occupying the Mormon mind.

The fact is, no one is breaking down doors to read Douglas Thayer or Todd Robert Petersen or any other Mormon writer who chooses to write anything that comes close to suggesting that Mormons are something other than a herd of sexually-repressed/repressive/oversexed weirdos.[vi]

Why is that?

Part of me hopes that it is a matter of accessibility. National critics and audiences, including the literary establishment, are open to Mormon stories about polygamy and homosexuality because they are about national issues—issues about which they have strong opinions. Works like The Lonely Polygamist and Angels in America, therefore, find a wider audience because they address issues that appeal to a wider audience, often in ways that affirm what many readers already feel on the issue.

The same cannot be said, however, about a book like Summer Fire or The Backslider. Who but a Mormon could identify with Owen Williams or Frank Windham? Who but a Mormon could get Jack Harrell’s “Calling and Election”?[vii]

Not many.

Possibly, one way to remedy the barrier between national audiences and more authentic Mormon literatures (i.e. gain literary respectability) would be through education. Teach a national audience, or the literary establishment, about the issues that are important, say, to contemporary Mormon novelists, and the audience will be more likely to be interested in and understand the novelist’s work. If minority literatures show us anything, they show us that we can connect with lives and cultures different from our own as long as they make us care enough to connect.

Of course, making an audience care is tricky. In a guest post on Dawning of a Brighter Day, I once suggested that one way to make certain audiences—specifically, academic audiences—care about Mormon literature would be to develop a body of academic writing about Mormon texts. My idea was that if you produce and publish a sizable body of Mormon literary criticism in reputable venues, then academic recognition and respectability would follow. I still believe this is true, although I readily admit that it will take years and years to bring about.

I wonder if the same principle applies to other audiences as well. If enough of a buzz is made nationally over Mormon literature, would it be sufficient to make people care enough to read a Mormon text on its own terms? Probably, but you still need to find venues willing to cooperate with the buzz efforts. It would be great, for instance, if Oprah selected Bound on Earth or Long After Dark for her popular (and respected) book club, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.[viii] In fact, for the moment, I think a spot on the Oprah Book Club is setting ambitions too high. It’s definitely looking beyond the mark.

As I see it, for Mormon literature to gain wider literary respectability without being colonized by the establishment,[ix] it’s going to need to take it’s time and win its audience over. In fact, before it can take American audiences by storm, it will first need to find a solid Mormon audience. Then, after it has established itself within the Mormon community, and demonstrated its ability to make a dollar, it will have enough uncompromising advocates to carry it safely to the next level, even the Kolobian realms of Oprah.[x]

Of course, getting Mormons to read Mormon literature is a difficult endeavor, and everyone seems to have an opinion on why it hasn’t happened yet. Personally, I don’t think it’s a matter of offensive content or finding Mormons who actually read.[xi] Rather, I think it’s again a matter of education: Mormon readers don’t know what’s out there that’s worth reading.

I wonder, then, if the next step toward respectability is to work toward popularizing Mormon literature among the Mormon masses. No, I don’t mean allowing Mormon literature to be colonized by popular Mormon tastes,[xii] but rather taking the message of Mormon literature to Bloggernacle sites other than, say, A Motley Vision or Dawning of a Brighter Day, where readers have already gotten the message.

This strategy, of course, has been proposed before. Last year, Jonathan Langford posted on A Motely Vision about his attempt to start a conversation about Mormon Literature on an Amazon.com messagae board. I think he’s got the right idea, although I wonder if Amazon is the right place for it.

Currently, the Bloggernacle has many popular, well-travelled blogs that address Mormonism culturally rather than doctrinally or institutionally. I wonder if flooding these sites with energetic guest posts about Mormon literature might be the way the get the word out among the Mormons.[xiii]

In his essay “The Burden of Skepticism,” scientist Carl Sagan chides his fellow scientists for their apparent unwillingness to popularize science for the masses, leaving the door open for pseudo-science to take its place. He reasons that if scientists were able to explain science to “the average person” through “accessible and exciting” means, then the masses would become more interested in real science, and imaginative substitutes, like astrology, would begin to lose its audience.

Could this be true also with Mormon literature? If Mormon literature advocates blasted the Bloggernacle with “accessible and exciting” posts about Mormon literature, would Mormon readers begin to seek out Bound on Earth before The Help? Would that be enough to get Mormon literature on the road to respectability without compromise?

Or do we need to wait for a Mormon Oprah to do the job for us?

[i] I think Morris makes an important, potentially revolutionary point here. Thanks to Orson F. Whitney, who said that Mormons will someday have Shakespeares and Miltons of their own, Mormon writers have looked to the day when a Mormon Milton or Shakespeare would arrive on the scene, messiah-like, and grant respectability to Mormon literature. In his post, however, Morris seems to be suggesting that we're placing too much hope in this “prophesy”—and possibly even allowing it to lead us and Mormon literature astray. I hope he’s right in this respect, since a gentile Milton is bad enough.

[ii] I recognize, by the way, that terms like “Mormon literature” and “literary establishment” are problematic because they are vague and unspecific. What makes a work of literature authentically Mormon? Who makes up the literary establishment? These are questions for other posts. For the sake of this post, though, think of the literary establishment as those who put together or are included in, say, the Norton or Longman literature anthologies that are used by universities across the country.

[iii] If anything irritates me more, it’s the phrase “magical underwear,” which seems to be a media darling.

[iv] And your example can’t include a story about a grisly, religiously-motivated murder, either. Sorry Krakauer fans.

[v] In fact, I’d be willing to say that a Mormon literature that is not willing to address these issues is not much of a Mormon literature at all.

[vi] Of course, the more I read of nineteenth century depictions of Mormon, the more I realize that this has always been the stereotype. The Book of Mormon musical brings nothing new to the table aside from a few catchy songs.

[vii] I’m a Mormon, and I’m not sure I entirely get it.

[viii] While Oprah has endorsed a book about Mormons before, it is not a book many Mormons will likely appreciate.

[ix] A case of having cake and eating it too.

[x] Personally, I hope we set our sights higher than Oprah—although, I admit, Oprah would be big.

[xi] There is an erroneous belief, perpetuated by frustrated Mormon readers, that Mormons don’t read.

[xii] That didn’t work out too well for Mormon cinema.

[xiii] I tried to do this recently, with moderate success, on the blog Modern Mormon Men with a guest post entitled “The Five Mormon Books Every Modern Mormon Man Should Read.”

Douglas Thayer and the Adolescent Adam: A Review of "Summer Fire"

2011-08-11T06:23:00.001-04:00

Douglas Thayer’s fiction clings doggedly to the Mormon boyhood. His protagonists, usually young men from Provo, exist in a limbo state between innocence and knowledge. Indeed, like adolescent Adams, they often bite into forbidden fruits—usually violent in nature—and find themselves stranded in lone and dreary worlds. In this respect, they share blood—in more ways than one—with the protagonists in the fiction of Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy, two writers whose works famously explore the ways violence shapes masculinity. But where the protagonists of Hemingway and McCarthy succumb to the violence of a fallen world, Thayer’s hold on to the possibility of joy and redemption, even when neither possibility is readily discernible.

This optimism, in some ways, sets Thayer apart from much of contemporary American fiction, which is either overly clever or overly morose in its bleak depiction of modern life. As a writer, Thayer resists such pessimism without discarding the hard realities of life. His stories, therefore, are sad and often heartbreaking, but never tragic. Nor are they about simple dualistic worlds where good and evil are easily distinguishable. Usually, only a few crucial life decisions separate Thayer’s protagonists from his antagonists.

As a reader, I’ve encountered Thayer’s fiction in a haphazard way. His second novel, The Conversion of Jeff Williams (Signature Books, 2003), which I read shortly after its publication, was the first novel I experienced that treated contemporary Mormonism in a realistic way. Earlier this year, I read (and reviewed) his third and most recent novel, The Tree House (Zarahemla Books, 2009), which is likely his best and most ambitious work. Between reading these two novels, I also read several of his short stories and his memoir, Hooligan: A Mormon Boyhood (Zarahemla Books, 2009). Finally, this past week, I finished his first novel, Summer Fire (Signature Books, 1983).

Summer Fire is about Owen Williams, a sixteen-year-old Mormon boy who lives with his mother and grandmother, has “always kept the commandments,” and soon expects to be “the only boy in his ward with both his Eagle Scout badge and Duty to God Award” (5-6). The novel begins as Owen and his cousin Randy board a bus that takes them to a Nevada hay ranch where they have been hired to work for the summer. For both Owen and Randy, this is the first time they have been away from their home in Provo for an extended period. It is Randy’s father’s hope that the summer job “will help make men out of both of them” (2).

Physically, though, Owen has a long way to go. Thin, with a history of sickness, Owen is a far cry from the cowboy image of masculinity that confronts him on the ranch. Manual labor does not come naturally to him, and he is more used to playing the piano and reading moralistic literature—Drinking and the Young American, Animals that Love, How the Youth Prepare for Temple Marriage—than clearing irrigation ditches and pitching hay. Randy, on the other hand, seems more suited for the work and the bunkhouse environment it fosters. He arrives at the ranch already in cowboy duds, and his literature of choice is back issues of Playboy.

Filling the role of antagonist in Summer Fire is the Staver, the ranch foreman, who carries a thick white scar down the length of his chest from a heart wound he received in the Korean War. He is, in some ways, the antithesis of Owen: around the ranch he is crude, irreverent, petty, and sometimes brutally violent. Yet he also possesses certain positive traits that Owen’s own self-righteousness undervalues or overlooks. With Owen, for example, he is sternly patient whenever the boy makes big mistakes, like overinflating the wheels on his pick-up truck, spilling a can of red paint, or sending the wrong calve to be slaughtered. Staver is also quick with a compliment whenever he sees a job well done. As a character, he is a multi-sided die whose behavior is never quite predictable. Once you begin to like and admire him, he does something to make you despise him. Then you learn more information about his past, and your view of him again changes entirely.

Like Thayer’s other novels, Summer Fire is a Mormon coming-of-age story. During his time on the ranch, Owen had a series of experiences that help refine his character and smooth the roughest edges of his commitment to personal righteousness. Indeed, throughout the novel, Owen grapples with reconciling the teachings of his beloved seminary teacher, Brother Anderson, with the moral ambiguities of ranch life. As he does so, he gains terrifying insights into his own potential for good and evil in the world.

Often, Staver is the catalyst for these insights, and Owen frequently loses himself in violent fantasies in which he and Staver switch roles:

I wanted to run and tackle [Staver], knock him down in the mud and manure, get on top of him and push his face down in it and keep doing that until he pleaded with me to stop, and I stood and pulled him up and shoved him against the fence, and then I climbed though the fence and walked away. I wanted Staver to feel what it was like. That’s all I wanted, so he wouldn’t do it to other summer hands. (120)

Such fantasies offer readers another view of Owen that contrasts sharply with the Golden Boy image he tries so hard to convey. Early in the novel, for instance, he is sure that he “couldn’t torture and kill people,” but that certainty erodes as he becomes increasingly more confused about the meaning of personal righteousness, and his ambivalence towards Staver gives way to hate.

When the day comes that I teach an Introduction to Mormon Literature class to a room full of Latter-day Saints, I’m going to assign Summer Fire. Not only has Thayer written the novel in an incredibly teachable way—it employs traditional plot structure, a clear theme, and plenty of accessible symbolism—but he has also used it to address many of the basic doctrines (i.e. atonement, eternal progression, etc.) that young Latter-day Saints learn about and discuss in the Seminary program. What is more, the novel has a kind of ageless quality about it, despite being set sometime in the mid-1960s, possibly due to its remote setting, timeless themes, or even Thayer’s own distinctive, unadorned prose style. Whatever the case may be, readers are unlikely to be distracted by any details that would betray the fact that it was published nearly thirty years ago.

Summer Fire, in short, is an excellent novel that deserves recognition as a classic of Mormon fiction. For readers who are familiar with Thayer and his fiction, this is old news. In 1985, Eugene England praised Summer Fire for being “the first ‘real’ Mormon novel in nearly thirty years […] to deal seriously with Mormon characters and ideas” (Dialogue 18.4, 197). Since then, dozens of other novels have followed its example, dealing seriously with Mormonism and slowly establishing a canon of texts built largely upon the foundation established by Thayer’s unswerving commitment to telling Mormon stories. While it is not Thayer’s best work—again, that distinction, in my opinion, remains with his masterful The Tree House—Summer Fire remains a solid stone in that foundation.

Summer Fire is currently out-of-print; however, you can purchase a second-hand copy of it from Amazon.com for as little as $0.43 plus shipping.

A Hot Two Days in Old Nauvoo: A Review of Sorts

2011-08-06T11:07:00.003-04:00

The next time you make plans to do some summertime camping in Nauvoo, check the forecast. It can get hot. Hot enough to make you wonder why the heck anyone in the nineteenth century—that heyday of heavy fabrics and modest dress—would want to live there.

Last month my family and I made that mistake. We had camped at Nauvoo before—several times—so we thought nothing of it. Nauvoo State Park, after all, is a notoriously cheap place to camp—cheaper than any of Nauvoo’s novelty hotels—and it always has plenty of campsites and hardly any campers.

Plus, it’s close to everything.[1]

So, after a seven hour drive, during which my four-year-old daughter and I invented a game called “Spot the Corn,”[2] we pulled into a beautiful campsite at the top of a hill overlooking other beautiful campsites, the trunks of several tall trees, and a row of rusty dumpsters. It was a magnificent sight for one who had just spent a really long time in a van with a bunch of little kids. Without delay, I got out of the van, greeted my parents (who had arrived there several hours before us), and proceeded to perspire like a seventh grade math teacher. Within five minutes I was wringing out my shirt and playing connect-the-dots with mosquito bites.

Of course, I should have been ready for the heat. For most of that day, the thermometer in our van was reading temperatures in the high nineties. But temperatures like that are hard to imagine when you’re wrapped in the chilly arms of your automobile’s air conditioner.

The AC, I have learned, can be a deceitful lover.

Fortunately, we were only in Nauvoo for a short visit, a stop-off on our way to a family reunion in Branson, Missouri.[3] Still, at the end of every day I felt like Humphery Bogart looked just before he was killed in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It wasn’t the best time of year to be outside. Walking between each building in Old Nauvoo was like taking a stroll through the steamy insides of a flatiron. After a while, we gave up and retreated to the climate-controlled visitor’s center, where we watched the kids play WWE Smackdown at the feet of the Christus statue.

By the late afternoon, though, we had to brave the heat again. We returned to the campsite and let the kids play with a nearby water pump while we ate dinner and let our clothes get sweaty again. Off to the west, the sun was setting, but the heat—like a has-been country star on a small-time Branson stage—didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

That night our plan was to see the new Nauvoo pageant, one of the main reasons for our being in town. I had seen the older pageant, The City of Joseph, a number of times, but had a low opinion of it. I wasn’t expecting the new one to be much better even though everyone I had talked to—including a brother-in-law who had performed in it—assured me that it was, in a word, “amazing.”[4]

I had my doubts. Church pageants and I had never really seen eye to eye. And I was feeling kind of sick. I think the sun was getting to me.

At around seven o’clock we headed down to the pageant venue, where the cast members—in full costume—were holding a kind of country fair. Various booths were set up for kids to make pioneer crafts and play with nineteenth-century toys. In the center of it all was a makeshift dance floor where teenage cast members dressed in pioneer dresses danced with teenagers in modern-day shorts and t-shirts.

Of course, as well-put together as it was, I didn’t enjoy the fair as much as the kids. Like I said, I was feeling a little sick.[5] But I was also extremely paranoid that someone was going to steal the choice seats I had informally reserved with a ratty picnic blanket and a beach towel a few hours earlier. Maybe it was the effects of the sun on my brain, but I had convinced myself that some type-A with big teeth an entitlement complex was going to steal my seats for his wife and kids. I even envisioned myself having a loud shouting match with the guy.

As usual, my paranoia turned out to be just that. Everyone was really nice.[6] No one even asked me for a member referral.[7]

But it was still hot—even after the sun set and the pageant got underway. In the stage lights, swarms of mosquitos turned tight circles around each other, spinning haphazardly like rogue satellites, creating something of a smog of insects above the heads of the sweat-stained actors marching single-file onto the stage. Bagpipers played “Praise to the Man” while two men held the American and Illinois state flag in front of the audience—creating, something of an ironic juxtaposition, considering that the original lyrics to the hymn about Joseph Smith’s martyrdom sang:

Long shall his blood, which was shed by assassins,

Stain Illinois, while the earth lauds his fame.

Ironic moments like that, of course, are part of any attempt to reimagine and portray the past.[8] As peoples and attitudes change, I’ve learned, their take on history changes with them. In the 165 years since the saints left Nauvoo, Mormonism has certainly shifted its focus a number of times, especially during the twentieth century, and its history—the way it tells its story—has not been immune to these shifts.

The current Nauvoo pageant reflects this. For example, I noticed that it places a lot more emphasis on Nauvoo’s racial diversity than its predecessor, The City of Joseph, by including Jane Manning as one of its main characters. It also gives women characters, like Leonora Taylor and Vilate Kimball, a more prominent voice.[9]

Immigrants, too, get a bigger voice. One of the main story threads in the pageant is about a family of Scottish immigrants, the Lairds, whose story is meant to help audience members better relate to the events being portrayed on the stage. Robert Laird, for instance, is a non-Mormon stonecutter who has his doubts about Mormonism. His wife, Becky, on the other hand, is a ready believer. Both provide different perspectives on the Mormon message, and the idea seems to be that audience members can identify with either one or the other, if not both.

Sadly, for much of the pageant, I was wrestling my two-year-old, who goes crazy if she’s still awake by nine o’clock. As much as I tried to get her interested in what was happening on stage—“Look! It’s Joseph Smith!” “Ooo! Do you like their dresses!”—she wanted nothing of it. Half-way through the production, I found myself wandering around in the dark of the night, trying my best to watch the pageant and keep my daughter from screaming. She seemed content only when I let her walk around on her own, which every parent worth his or her subscription to Parenting knows is not a good idea at nighttime—even in a crowd full of nice Mormons.

Eventually, I traded in my crazy two-year-old for my sleepy four-year-old, who fell asleep on my lap as Joseph Smith was delivering a shortened version of King Follett’s funeral sermon, which emphasized less our potential to become like the gods and more our ability to live eternally with our families.[10] So I was able to see the completion of the Nauvoo temple and the beginnings of the trek west in relative peace.[11]

In another blog post, I mentioned that I was keeping my expectations for the new Nauvoo pageant in check. After seeing it, though, I realized that I didn’t have to. I was surprised with how much I liked it. And not only because of the impressive quality of the production and the crisp economy of its storytelling.[12] I liked how narrator Parley P. Pratt would occasionally break the fourth wall to remind us that the past has a place in the present, that the people of old Nauvoo remain there because we’re there to remember them and their legacy. In a sense, it was a subtle reminder that Joseph Smith’s vision of generations welded together in an unbreakable chain is not something reserved for the afterlife. It’s something that happens whenever something like the Nauvoo pageant helps us turn our hearts and minds back to the past.

I admit I wasn’t thinking about any of this when I left the pageant. Mostly I was still too irritated from the combination of staggering heat and wild children to reflect much on anything but how much I wanted to go to bed.[13]

But since then I’ve had time to think about the many ways we make usable history out of the past. The Nauvoo Pageant, after all, doesn’t tell the whole story of old Nauvoo. (How could it in ninety minutes?) So it’s slanted history, biased in a way that will likely irritate historical purists who see maliciousness in selective memory.[14] But it does tell a story—true in a very real sense—that the average Jane and Joe Mormon can take home in their pocket or hold in their hand like a souvenir brick. It’s history-as-a-reminder that they’re part of something much bigger than a weekly Sunday meeting or an occasional munch and mingle.

To my surprise, I’m looking forward to the next time I see the Nauvoo pageant. In my opinion, it’s a production that’s remarkable without having to be crowbarred into remarkability—which is more than I’ve said about other pageants. I’d recommend it for everyone.[15]

And in case anyone was wondering, I did not get into any scraps with anti-Mormons. In fact, I didn’t see a single anti-Mormon or anti-Mormonmobile around.[16] Nor was Old Nauvoo overly crowded—except in the air-conditioned visitor’s centers.

I hate to think the heat was cause for these pleasant absences. Maybe the anti-Mormons are getting soft in their old age and their zeal is no longer enough to keep them cool on hot summer nights in old Mormon country.

[1] Which, I admit, isn’t saying much for a town as small as Nauvoo.

[2] And a variation, “Spot the Beans.”

[3] One of the few places I’ve been where everyone on a billboard looks as if they’ve had a facelift.

[4] As a rule, I’m suspicious of a) anything my brother-in-law says (even though he’s usually right) and b) anything modified by the word “amazing.”

[5] More accurately: a lot sick.

[6] I think my paranoia about mean Mormons goes back to my days living in Provo, where everyone is rude at least once or twice a week. Once, at a BYU football game, I asked one of my fellow Cougars a simple question and he responded in way that left it entirely clear—in my mind—that the guy was a solid, All-American fetch-wad. At another time, my wife and I—along with our newborn baby—were pulling out of the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Orem when another clean-cut fetch-wad punched the trunk of my car and started yelling at me. To this day I don’t know why. I’ve reviewed the incident a number of times in my mind, and I can’t figure it out. My trunk, however, still has the faint outline of this chucklehead’s knuckles—a reminder of the day my car got sucker-punched. Anyway, those are only two of my stories about the rudeness I encountered in Happy Valley. I have others. Such experiences, though, have almost disappeared since moving back to Cincinnati.

[7] While I was fiercely guarding our seats, my wife was asked for one by one of the teenage cast members.

[8] Take a look at what we do with America’s Founding Fathers.

[9] As I remember it, The City of Joseph also included a woman’s perspective of old Nauvoo without really naming any of the specific women who lived there or giving them major speaking roles.

[10] Which, I recognize, is basically saying the same thing.

[11] Thanks to our crazy two-year-old, my wife did not.

[12] My many beeves with The City of Joseph hinged primarily on its lack of both of these crucial elements of good theater.

[13] Which turned out to be pretty crappy itself, since my bed was actually a sleeping bag in a tent that didn’t do much to lower the overall temperature.

[14] I have a lot of opinions on this. Maybe one day I’ll write about them.

[15] And I mean that: invite your friends. It’s not something you’ll have to apologize for.

[16] I did see one guy selling Living Scriptures videos in an LDS bookstore, but I didn’t talk to him. Instead, I perused the shelves (unsuccessfully) for good Mormon fiction.

500 Words on Why Mormon Fiction Should Avoid Utopian Spaces

2011-07-29T15:21:00.002-04:00

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “Utopia” as “[a] place, state, or condition ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs, and conditions.” The original terms, of course, derives from Sir Thomas More’s 1516 book, Utopia, which describes how such a place would be run.

Today, when we talk about utopian spaces, we are generally referring to safe-havens perfectly suited for people who have been screwed over by society. Early in Mormon history, Joseph Smith and his followers attempted to build utopian spaces in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Later, Brigham Young and the pioneers tried again in Utah and its surrounding regions. In each case, the Saints came up short.

Today, the Mormon utopian dream is a dream deferred, although remnants of it still exist prominently in such practices as tithing, temple work, service, Church welfare, and home and visiting teaching. While these practices do much to ease the burdens of the persecuted and create a more utopian space, they are not perfect.

Zion is still yet to be redeemed.

In “realistic” fiction, utopian spaces occasionally pop up. For instance, in John Steinbeck’s excellent Depression-era novel The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family visits the Weedpatch Camp, an idyllic government-run haven for migrant workers in California. For the Joads, as well as for Steinbeck’s readers, the Weedpatch Camp presents the perfect remedy for the squalid living conditions, abuses, and exploitations that workers were then subjected to. The suggestion is that if there were more places like the Weedpatch Camp, families like the Joads would be able to stay together and survive.

In many ways, the Weedpatch Camp episode injects much needed hope and idealism in an otherwise bleak novel. At the same time, however, something about Steinbeck’s depiction of it makes it seem a little too perfect and idyllic—and that kind of perfection is suspicious to me. As a reader, I’m happy that the Joads find a clean, safe place to stay for a while. But, at the same time, I also want a whole picture. What’s the other side to the Weedpatch Camp?

My point is this: perfect places don’t exist in this life and safe-havens are not without dangers of their own. When we begin to believe otherwise, we take our first steps toward disillusionment, disappointment, betrayal, and apostasy. As Mormons, we believe that nothing can currently exist without the influence of some kind opposition. Our goal, therefore, is not to be rid of opposition—i.e. achieve a perfect state—but to exist well despite of it. Of course, this means that everything we do or are, every space that we make, will be imperfect, subject to dissolution. Real spaces are flawed.

Realistic Mormon fiction should avoid the lie of utopian spaces—especially when they’re meant to be uniquely Mormon. Otherwise, it runs the risk of becoming the worst kind of inspiration fiction—the candy fluff that seeks to “pacify, and lull [readers] away into carnalsecurity,” leading them to believe that “All is well in Zion.”

Summer Vacation and Guest Posts...

2011-07-21T08:40:00.001-04:00

I'm on vacation in Missouri right now, so I'll probably not have time to write up a formal post this week. However, after spending Monday and Tuesday in Nauvoo, I have two Nauvoo-themed blog posts in the works.

In the meantime, check out my recent guest post on Dawning of a Brighter Day, "The Beauty of (Church) Pageants." Also, starting tomorrow (7/22), you can read my guest post "The 5 Mormon Books Every Modern Mormon Man Should Read" on Modern Mormon Men.

Enjoy.

Busting Masks and Paradigms: A Review of Arianne Cope's "The Coming of Elijah"

2011-07-15T01:13:00.002-04:00

Some novels, like The Great Gatsby and Ethan Frome, are elegant vehicles of precision. Their modus operandi is the well-polished chapter, the finely-calibrated paragraph, the stream-lined turn-of-phrase. They make it easy for the college freshman to get behind the wheel and go for a spin around the sexy fiction paradigm: exposition, rising action, climax, and denouement. If you could compare them to a Hollywood actor, they’d be the Cary Grants of literature. So slick and sharp, it’s amazing they don’t give you a paper cut every time you turn a page.

Then there are novels like Toni Morrison’s Beloved or William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, which are praiseworthy for the beautiful mess they make for the reader. Pregnant with ideas, slumped over with ambiguous symbols, these novels trip over the paradigm and kick it out of the way. They’re the James Deans of literature: brilliantly unpredictable, occasionally incoherent, always flawed, they speed ahead in no apparent direction. Their goal is not the finish line, but the glorious, disastrous unpredictability of the race.

As a reader, I like both kinds of novels. Each provides a different reading experience that is no more valuable to me than the other. But if I had to choose between the two—if I had to make a Sophie’s Choice—I’d pick Absalom over Gatsby nine days out of ten. Like most book hoarders, I like a good mess.

Of course, I find that most Mormon novels are fairly well-crafted for small-press publications. Frequently short and minimalist in style, they conserve words with the economic will of an ace budgeteer. They also tend to stick to subject matter that is familiar to Mormons in America—if not always pleasing to them—which makes for a much smaller mess overall.

In this respect, Arianne Cope’s The Coming of Elijah (Parables 2006) is not like most Mormon novels. While its length is nothing out of the ordinary—at 278 pages, it’s average size for a Mormon novel—it’s unique subject matter, along with the ambitious way it lassos in ideas and raises unsettled (and unsettling) questions, sets it apart from its peers like the biblical prophet whose promised return lingers at the heart of the book. It isn’t a tidy Mormon novel.

In fact, I think that’s the last thing it wants to be.

The Coming of Elijah is about three main characters: Mary, a mute Native American woman who is raised in the LDS Church’s Indian Placement Program; Eli, her talkative youngest daughter; and Mike, a Jewish teenager living in Spanish Fork, Utah, where the novel takes place. The first half of the book, “White Shell,” covers Mary’s life from her childhood in the placement program through the first twenty years of her difficult marriage. Her story is not an easy one to read. She’s a victim of sexual abuse (first from her father, then from her husband), physical abuse, abandonment, racism, ingratitude, and infidelity. A mother of nine daughters, she’s also mocked by nearly everyone for believing that she will one day have a son named Elijah.

Eli, on the contrary, is a victim of little more than her own self-centeredness. Although she’s overweight and embarrassed by her mother’s homely appearance and demeanor, she’s also got a clever brain and pitch-perfect funny bone. Her story covers the second half of the novel, “Blue Thread,” which moves at a much quicker pace than the more meditative first, largely because of Eli’s personality and insight into her world.

Mike’s story runs throughout the entire novel, shouldering its way into the narrative with Mike’s strong first-person narration. In many ways, though, it’s the weakest aspect of the novel. Mike is a classmate of Eli’s, and Eli appears briefly in his story, but it has little else to do with the novel as a whole—aside from the fact that Mike and his parents are celebrating the Passover and waiting for the prophet Elijah to arrive. Of course, even though Mike’s story is an inexact fit in the novel, it does come to a certain conclusion about the place of religion in modern society, which is a major theme in the novel, especially during Eli’s half of it. What is more, it’s not a bad story in and of itself. Even though he seems lost and out of place, Mike’s an interesting kid, and his all-too-short chapters always leave you wanting to know more of his story.

Of course, the real appeal of The Coming of Elijah is the unique Mormon history it explores. The Indian Placement Program only ended as recently as 1996, yet it’s a controversial segment of Mormon history that I (and I’m sure many others) know very little about. Cope’s depiction of it is limited mainly to Mary’s experience, which is mostly negative due to the her physical challenges—she’s unable to speak—and her well-intentioned foster parents’ racism and lack of respect for her heritage. At the same time, Cope also leads readers to wonder what Mary’s life would have been like if she had stayed on the Navajo reservation where she had spent her early childhood. Would she have been better off?

By the end of the novel it’s hard to say. It’s one of those questions Cope plants in her readers’ minds to grow long after they have finished reading the last page.

Aside from the Indian Placement Program, the novel also explores other subjects: the usable (and misusable) Mormon past, the Lamanite curse and its place in Mormon theology and culture, the nature of religious belief, the role of visions and miracles, the process of conversion, and the meaning of testimony. The book is likewise interested in the various masks Mormons wear, the public facades they put on to deceive, distract, blend in, and survive. In this novel, every character struggles to break through one façade or another—with little success. Each of them is too well-hidden, too secure behind whatever it is they use as a mask: history, humor, church service, Mary Kay make-up, silence…

Amazingly, Cope is able to juggle all of these ideas in the novel without fumbling them or overtaxing the narrative. Her believable characters and the realistic details of their lives make it work. Readers, in fact, never get the sense that Cope is forcing anything on them. Mary, Eli, and the rest of her characters speak for themselves.

Aside from her story “White Shell” in Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction, as well as a few of her Church magazine pieces, I’ve not come across any additional work by Arianne Cope. And I’ve been surprised by the small number of reviews for The Coming of Elijah I have found on the Internet. As a beautifully written, challenging, and engaging novel, it should have more readers and reviews. Word needs to get out: this is an exceptional book.

As a new fan, I can only hope that she’s working on another novel like The Coming of Elijah--one that explodes compressed thought and flings the boundaries of Mormon fiction even further away from the tried and steady course.

I mean, who needs paradigms when you can thrash about your fiction in a Porsche 550 Spyder?

500 Words on What To Do with Racist Mormon Novels

2011-07-07T00:11:00.001-04:00

A few months ago, the blog Good Reason posted some thoughts on Emma Marr Petersen’s 1956 Mormon novel Choose Ye This Day, which contains a chapter that seeks to explain and justify Mormonism’s former racial policies. Unfortunately, I don’t have space to go into all of the ideas set down in the chapter. Put simply, they are these: a person’s race was determined in pre-mortality based on his or her loyalty to God during the War in Heaven. The most loyal people were blessed with white skin while everyone else was assigned a lesser race. The most disloyal of the loyal—the fence-sitters—were given black skin and no right to the priesthood.

The chapter also rails against interracial relationships. Basically, it argues that integration is okay as long as the “negroes” don’t get too fresh with the white girls.

Sadly, these ideas were pretty common before 1978, when the priesthood ban was lifted, and they are still expressed on occasion today, usually by older members who make a habit of reading old school church publications.

These racial theories aren’t the most flattering aspect of Mormon history, and it’s unfortunate that they’re tied to some of our most respected forbears. Personally, it’s a part of our past that I would gladly do without. Like the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the old racial policies and the theories used to justify them nag at me. Sometimes I think it would be better for us all if we just forgot about them.

Of course, forgetting the past—or worse, denying it—is a bad idea, and not simply because of the old cliché about being doomed to repeat it. An honest approach to history allows us to acknowledge our flaws, experience guilt, and feel compassion for those we have wronged. In a sense, it gives us the privilege of having a nagging thorn in our side, a constant reminder of the worst we are capable of.

Perfection is a hard thing to live up to, so it’s important that we keep a clear view of the past. Works of fiction like Choose Ye This Day are lousy contributions to the Mormon canon, but we can’t tuck them away into the corner of our meetinghouse libraries and pretend they don’t exist. They need to be remembered—if not read—to encourage us to produce a Mormon literature that strives to be more than what it has been: more thoughtful, more compassionate, more aware of others, and more worthy of the name Mormon.

Of course, I’m not saying we need to promote novels like Choose Ye This Day as important works of Mormon literature. That would be giving them more credit than they’re worth. What we need, rather, is to remain aware of them, keep them on the shelves and open for discussion. As much as we hate to admit it, they are a part of who we are and where we have been. They say something about us, but also challenge us to change the future.

"Are We Americans?"--Nephi Anderson

2011-07-04T07:39:00.000-04:00

For your Independence Day reading pleasure, here is a classic Nephi Anderson essay from the Improvement Era. Among other things, it reflects a time when the question posed in the title was not nearly as easy for American Mormons and non-Mormons to answer as it is today.

Enjoy.

Are We Americans?

By Nephi Anderson, Superintendent of Schools, Box Elder County, Utah.

Improvement Era, Oct. 1900

Are we "Mormons" Americans? Are we Americans at heart-in spirit and in truth? What is our belief regarding America and her destiny? Have we shown ourselves to be Americans?

May I answer these questions? I read in the introduction to Julian Hawthorne's "History of the United States," this expression:

"I take the view that the American nation is the embodiment and vehicle of a divine purpose to emancipate and enlighten the human race."

Had Mr. Hawthorne purposely extracted the essence of "Mormon" belief regarding America, he could not have stated it better. What the historian expresses as an opinion, "Mormonism" teaches as a divine truth.

He who shapes all human events to his own glorious purpose had a hand in the formation of the American republic. God's Spirit moved upon the restless, untiring Columbus, and led him westward. The time had come for the establishing of political and religious liberty in the earth. The Old World lay rankly overgrown with the weeds of despotism, bigotry, and superstition. A virgin soil must be had in which to plant the precious tree of liberty, that it might get growth before the enemy should come to sow his tares. Then the same Spirit of God moved upon the Pilgrims, implanting in their hearts the love of liberty, and strengthening them in their resolutions to seek and establish it. God gave strength to the armies of liberty, and sat in the councils of the republic. Slowly, carefully, shapen by the hand of God, this nation arose pure and strong, and there was now a spot on the earth where the purposes of God could be consummated. And now came the celestial messengers from heaven bearing another precious tree to plant in the garden prepared for it; and that was the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, revealed again from heaven in its ancient strength and power and purity, given into the keeping of citizens of the American republic.

As to past history, this is what "Mormonism" has taught me. Is there anything un-American in the doctrine?

The Book of Mormon (a record claimed by the Mormons to be a divine history of ancient America) contains many references to this land. Let me quote a few:

"Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ."

"Behold this land, saith God, shall be a land of thy inheritance, and the Gentiles shall be blessed upon the land. And this land shall be a land of liberty to the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land who shall raise up unto the Gentiles; and I will fortify this land against all other nations. * * * For he that raiseth up a king against me shall perish, for, I, the Lord, the King of heaven will be their king, and I will be a light unto them forever that hear my words."

The italics in the above quotation are mine.

In the book of Doctrine and Covenants claimed by us to contain the revelations of God to The Church in this age, we find this:

"It is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land [the United States] by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood."

If there be an American religion, "Mormonism" must be that one. No other religious system makes such claims for America as does "Mormonism." No other religion has made America such holy ground by its teachings and history. The "Mormons" have placed America along with Palestine and made the Holy Land to share its honors with the Zion of the West. The Book of Mormon teaches that Jesus visited the ancient inhabitants of this continent, walked and talked with them and taught them the principles of the Gospel. The Lord's feet have pressed American soil.

We "Mormons" claim an American prophet. All other religions look to other lands for theirs. The founders of the Christian sects were German, or Scotch, or Swiss. The founder of "Mormonism," through God, was an American, a descendant of the Pilgrims. Other religionists limit angels' visits to a far eastern land. We claim that the West also has been sanctified by the presence of heavenly beings. Others confine apostles and inspired men to a past age, and an Old World nation. We say that God has raised up American apostles, and the inspiration of the Almighty can be and is given to Americans.

Are we Americans? Across the American continent have the stirring scenes of our history been enacted. Beginning in New York, The Church, in its infancy, removed to Ohio, and from there to Missouri. Driven from lands purchased from the general government, we next settled in Illinois, where a flourishing city arose. From Nauvoo went the exodus of a people across the prairies of the West. We were often advised to get out from under the United States' jurisdiction, but always did we say, "No; this government is our government, and under its constitutional laws we wish to live. Though officials might abuse them yet are they God-given." Picture, then, the moving of a nation into the wilderness, seeking a home, they knew not where. Then remember that at this point there came a call from the United States for five hundred volunteers to fight the battles of their country. The men were obtained, and women and children drove the ox teams on alone. Never was there a more difficult march of infantry than was performed by the "Mormon" Battalion from Fort Leavenworth to San Diego in the war with Mexico. Yet, reader, go to your book-shelf, take down all your United States histories, and see if you can find even a mention of that wonderful expedition.

Here in the desert valleys of the Rocky Mountains, we have built a great American commonwealth. Converts to "Mormonism" who come to America from abroad soon lose their national characteristics and blend into the one American life. And are they brought into a bondage to a "Mormon hierarchy," as is so often claimed? Let me quote what the Lord says to The Church on this point in the Doctrine and Covenants:

"No power can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the Priesthood [the governing power in The Church] only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness and pure knowledge which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile, reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love towards him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be an enemy; that he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death."

We are inseparably connected with America. Her destiny is ours. We believe that here the latter day Zion will be erected, on whose towers will shine the glory of God. America is the land of Zion. "From Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." The golden age of the world is coming. Then justice will take the bandage from her eyes, and every wrong thing will be righted. America will get her share of glory and honor, and in that share the "Mormons" will have a part.

Five Mormon Stories I'll Never Write...

2011-06-28T23:32:00.002-04:00

I'm not a creative writer, although I spent at least a decade of my life--if not more--pretending that I was. During my awkward years as an undergraduate, I wrote a lot of poetry and the opening paragraphs to about four dozen or so short stories. Sometime, if I'm ever lacking something to say, I'll post one of them for laughs.

Smart alecks, of course, in that endearing way of theirs, like to say that those who can't write short stories critique and analyze them. I'm not sure this is entirely true, although it might be true for me. Personally, though, I like to reverse the formula and say that those who can't write criticism write short stories instead.

Thinking about it that way helps me sleep at night.

I place this on the table because I have been thinking lately about some ideas for Mormon fiction that would be interesting to read, if not impossible to write. Here are five of them:

1. A genuinely heartbreaking EFY love story.

I never attended EFY as a youth, but I always made fun of those kids who came back having experienced a C.O.W., or Crush Of the Week. Apparently, they are very common at EFYs--and remarkably short-lived. In fact, come to think of it, I've never encountered any married couple that first met and fell in love at EFY.

Of course, I don't get out much.

Anyway, the impossible specifications are these: the story has to be really heartbreaking (no bathos here), but it can't under any condition involve death, suicide, law of chastity violations, premortal life reunions, or any version of Chris de Burgh's "The Lady in Red." No exceptions.

Good luck, writers. If you can make this story work, you can do anything.

2. A Mormon metahistorical romance.

The principle challenge of this particular work of fiction would be to understand exactly what a Mormon metahistorical romance is. I like to think of it this way: what would happen if Thomas Pynchon or William T. Vollmann took on the Mormon nineteenth Century?

Personally, I think we Mormons have not yet taken full advantage of the many narratives our PIONEER ancestors have bequeathed to us. All too often, Mormon historical fiction stops as soon as it reaches the Salt Lake Valley--as if nothing interesting happened after the Saints arrived in Utah.

I also think we need to be willing to toss the history into the blender, mix in some modern-day stuff, and see what happens when it gets spilled on the counter. If I had a lot of money, I would pay promising Mormon fictionists to write good historical fiction:

"Hey kid, wanna make a million bucks? Write a metahistorical romance about Rafael Monroy."

3. The Moroni Dialogues

This is my idea for a stage play.

Ever wonder what Moroni and Joseph Smith talked about during the four once-a-year conversations they had on the Hill Cumorah? I do. That's why I want someone to write this stage play. (I'd throw in the possibility of a film adaptaion, but I've never seen a good depiction of the Angel Moroni on film. I mean, take a look at The Book of Mormon Movie and tell me I don't have a point.)

I once seriously considered writing this play. I imagined Moroni as a kind of peddler figure in ragged clothes. Rather than appear in a bright conduit, he would just show up. Of course, my idea never got beyond that point. My stumbling block was the dialogue itself. Nothing I came up with was very profound. I wanted it all to be down-to-earth and on-the-level, but my weak dramatugical skills couldn't make it happen.

So, I leave the idea to a playwright more skilled than myself. Maybe someone who has actually written a real play before.

4. The Divine Prequel

Here's another idea that fascinates me: the story of God before he became God. Who was he? What was he like? What was he in to?

I mean, we know the vague basics of his life--that is, he was like us--but this story would go into significantly more detail. In fact, I have always imagined that this piece of fiction would end with a big reveal, a (pre-Lady in the Water) Shyamalanesque twist that clued us in on the main character's future identity.

Of course, the main obstacle for this story is its potential for sacrilege. Which is kind of why it's still on the back-burner of my mind. That, and I don't want it to be reduced to a satire. I want to read this story from a writer who takes the idea seriously.

5. The Orson Pratt Cannon

This Mormon steampunk story takes inspiration from alleged accounts of Joseph Smith's prophesies about missionaries being sent to the moon in order to preach to its inhabitants.

Basically, the story would involve Brigham Young and Daniel H. Wells authorizing Orson Pratt to build his "Stratosengine"--a massive cannon he plans to use to shoot his missionary-minded brother Parley to the moon (Jules Verne style)--as long as they can first use it for a long-distance shock and awe attack on Johnston's Army.

I almost started to work on this story until I discovered that Orson Pratt was on a mission in England during the Utah War. Of course, that was not an insurmountable technicality. For a while I imagined Pratt making use of the Greenwich Observatory, or having the England mission be a front while he was down in Iron County, Utah working on the Stratosengine.

Mostly, I lacked the time necessary to do justice to the idea.

That said, I still think it's an interesting story. If someone wants to steal this idea, all I ask is that I get a substantial share of the royalties and film rights. I also want the story's epigraph to read: "To Scott--for the idea!"

That would mean a lot to me.

Fenimore's Ghost

2011-06-26T22:12:00.000-04:00

I started a new blog a few weeks ago. It's going to be more like this blog was before I started writing about Mormon literature all the time.

I'm calling it Fenimore's Ghost. Don't try to read too much into the name.

Feel free to check it out, read it, subscribe to it, comment on it, etc. There will always be a link to it on the right-hand column of this blog.

Also, you can read my rationale for creating Fenimore's Ghost here.

Enjoy.