From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #222 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Tuesday, January 2 2001 Volume 01 : Number 222 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 01:05:59 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Orson Scott CARD, _Lost Boys_ (Review) Terry L Jeffress wrote: > Card depicted a suburban Mormon family, but didn't do anything with > it. Sure every character has to live somewhere and probably practices > some religion. If "the cigar is just a cigar," then let the man smoke > it without making a big deal about the brand. When an author focuses > on a detail, I expect that detail to have some bearing on the story. > I, like Jonathan, would like to see more believing, suburban Mormons > depicted in literature. But I think you have to have a reason for > emphasizing a character's religion, and it should play an important > role in your plot. No, I don't agree with this at all. First of all, a character's religion is hardly a "detail." It's an integral part of his life. I defy anyone to write a novel-length story of someone "smoking a religion" without giving it a brand name, and have the story feel satisfying. Many books and films in the 20th century have ignored religion in people's lives, but I also think that's a major defect in 20th century storytelling. On the other hand, if you're going to include a religious character, a generic religion is not likely to work. Not for a novel-length story or feature-length movie. I don't think the problem with _Lost Boys_ is that the LDS religion, so intricately interwoven into the characters, didn't affect the plot. Haven't we discussed before about how things like _Bash_ could be told from the point of view of any religion, but that it's important to be specific when painting a character and a plot? That's all that's happening here. The problem with _Lost Boys_ is that it didn't do much of _anything_ with the main point of the story until the end. Change the religion or leave it out, and that error would still be there bothering us. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 01:15:04 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] What Is Art? Scott Tarbet wrote: > You'll never have to worry about getting stuck being a bishop if you're "artsy". > [MOD: I'm not sure even this is a completely safe precaution...] Write something like _Backslider_ or _Dancing Naked_, and I bet it would be. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 20:41:02 -0600 From: "Todd Robert Petersen" Subject: Re: [AML] Shaken Faith and Truth Jacob Proffitt wrote > A story about Irish Catholics dealing with the death of a friend of their > child should very well attempt to represent the faithful response to that > death in the context of that story. Particularly if that story claims to > represent the faithful Irish Catholic father. Don't get me wrong--I've never asked that the gospel, God, or the Spirit be central to all our stories. I don't think it is too much to ask for it to be *present* in those stories about faithful LDS people, though. I agree with Jacob here, but add one caveat, one that comes to mind as I think of Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL. The Cratchits are faithful, but on Christmas Eve, Mrs. Cratchit won't drink to Scrooge's health. It is a tense moment. She's not showing much kindness, and it's clear that this is both a lapse on her part and something not out of hand. In fact, we'd probably all be less like Bob and more like his wife. This is instructive, in this discussion, because it shows that in the representation of the faithful, one is obligated to also show their lapses, the times when they don't measure up to their own ideals. When the faithful aren't represented as human (and all that means) they become untrustworthy to readers, which makes faithful people suspect in the eyes of all kinds of people. Another example: in my favorite telvision show, THE WEST WING, President Bartlett slaves over a decision to pardon a death row inmate who is up for execution. He and others in the White House seek (and receive unbidden) spiritual advice from all kinds of people--priests, rabbis, and the like--at the end the President realizes that he blew it, and receives confession from Karl Malden. I think this is a good representation of a faithful person who has blown it and must face the music. The danger when asking for accurate representation of the faithful comes when that "accuracy" (and I use this term in the guarded, cautious way of the postmodernist) is sacrificed for romantic and idealized notions of what the faithful are and what they do. The presence of the Gospel, God, or the Spirit in stories of the faithful must, I think, be done with care in order to avoid the sense that the author is evengelizing. It also needs to maintain a story's need for conflict. And in a more complicated sense, sometimes stories of the faithful need to be about those lapses of our interaction with God, when we have forgotten to pray, to act with kindness, to interact with grace. Sometimes God is still there even when we are NOT doing the right thing, when we have neglected our duties and forgotten Him. I think that our literature should show those moments as well. I mention this, because I think that this view is not shared by many readers, who want to be edified by tales of churchy heroism, (e.g. the savvy, in-touch home teacher is prompted to bring his home teaching family a ham and some gifts on Christmas, thus saving the father shame and bringing joy and happiness on Christmas). In literature, I am more interested in "evil and its consequences;" however, in conference, I like something else--reprimand. I very rarely like stories that simply end with; "Prayers were spoken, aloud and in silence. Tears were shed in that sweet, sweet moment of profound and pleading prayer. This hometeacher listened to the spirit and went willingly, without waiting to do his father's will . . ." As it has been mentioned. Some people like these kinds of stories, but I do not. I want the story of the fellow who did not go to visit one of his families on Christmas Eve becuase he and his wife are the only members in his family. The scriptures aren't really melancholy, but I kind of like BEING melancholy sometimes. Literature can help me see and understand this important aspect of being in the world. - -- Todd Robert Petersen - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 07:47:20 -0700 From: "bob/bernice hughes" Subject: Re: [AML] What Is Art? >From: "Alan Mitchell" You may be right about the insurance executive. An artist may have to remove himself from the grip of the power/money/popularity ideology. Are their any insurance executives lurking on the list to prove Todd wrong? Finally, do you -Todd- really think that teaching is the best beard to hide behind? Haven't we on the AML gone down this road before? Alan Mitchell ... And what if there were regular people lurking? Maybe they would write poetry that regular people understood, instead of just for the ivory tower academy. Some of us contend that the academic poets are the ones who killed poetry. Not dead in Mormon arts, you say? Ask a few of your typical ward members if they can name any Mormon poets? Eliza Snow, Orson Whitney. Maybe Emma Lou Thayne. Sorry, but that's it, and two of them don't write for us anymore. Go down to Deseret Book and try to find the poetry section. Good luck. Try and find any books by Mormon poets. Good luck. For your holiday reading pleasure, check out the Atlantic's website article on this topic (poetry/creative writing) by Dana Gioia, and the follow up article at: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry//gioia/gioia.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry//gioia/poetaud.htm Ho! Ho! Ho! Bob Hughes _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 08:13:54 -0700 From: Steve Subject: [AML] Re: What Is Art? Hi Listers, All this needless haggling over definitions of Art and Artists when someone has already summed it up so neatly! "Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth." -Picasso So, by inference, "Artists are liars who..." :-) Steve - - - skperry@mac.com http://stevenkappperry.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:49:25 -0700 From: Jacob Proffitt Subject: Re: [AML] Instructions to Guadalahonky's On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 12:07:16 -0700, Christopher Bigelow wrote: >136 S 12300 S=20 Is this one of them newfangled quantum addresses? There's two souths in there... :) Jacob - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 10:29:18 -0800 From: Rob Pannoni Subject: Re: [AML] What Is Art? "Eric R. Samuelsen" wrote: > > I can't draw worth a hoot, and my one and only attempt at sculpture came in Cub Scouts some thirty five years ago when I created a very nice abstract clay work that started off as an ashtray, which would have been a very thoughtful gift for my non-smoking parents. This made me laugh because it reminded me that when I was in elementary school I made a light cover for an overhead light out of clay. I was clever enough to at least put a few holes in it, but all-in-all, not one of my better ideas. It blocked out the light nearly completely. I thought about converting it to an ashtray, but the holes were a bit of a problem for that application. And my parents didn't smoke either. I guess it must have been art. It sure as heck wasn't good for anything else. - -- Rob Pannoni Rapport Systems http://www.rapport-sys.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 15:39:30 -0600 From: John Bennion (by way of Jonathan Langford ) Subject: [AML] AML Annual Meeting The following is the program for the upcoming AML Annual Meeting. If you sent me a proposal, and I haven’t contacted you, please let me know (john_bennion@byu.edu). Association for Mormon Letters Annual Conference Zion and New York: Bridges and Innovations February 24, 2001 Gore Auditorium, Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah 8-8:30 Registration 8:30 - 9:15 Plenary Session Steven Sondrup and Gideon Burton "Charting the Future from the Past: A History of the Association for Mormon Letters” 9:25 - 10:35 Concurrent Sessions A. Drama and Poetry Tim Slover ‘Worth a few bad dreams’: Toward a Mormon Aesthetic” Susan Howe “Sunstone Magazine and Twenty Years of Contemporary Mormon Poetry” Lisa Bickmore “National Trends in Poetry” B. Mormon Culture Kristi Bell “If We’re Having Doughnuts, It Must Be a Youth Activity: Foodways among the Mormons” Eric Eliason “Mark Twain, Brigham Young, and the Origin of an American Motif” Ivan Angus Wolfe “The Lost Tribes of Mormon SF Literature: Battlestar Galactica in Books and Comics” C. Children and YA Chris Crowe and Jesse Crisler “Then and Now: A Survey of Mormon Young Adult Writers” Anne Billings: “Louise Plummer: Local Grasshopper Made Good” Rick Walton “Mormon Picture Book Authors and Illustrators” 10:45 - 11:55 Concurrent Sessions A. Faith, Reading, Philosophy John-Charles Duffey Emerson as "radical restorationist" Cherry B. Silver “The Trials of Job for Tim Slover and Us” Harlow Clark "Socrates Stretched on Ion's Racke" B. Genre Fiction Gae Lyn Henderson “Conflicted Narratives: Mormon Romances Only Flirt with Feminism” Lavina Fielding Anderson and Paul Edwards “Murder Most Mormon: Swelling the National Trend” C. The Novel Richard H. Cracroft “God-Finding in the 21st Century: The Mormon Salvation Journey in Alan R. Mitchell's Angel of the Danube and John Bennion's Falling Toward Heaven” Douglas Alder “Writing Dixie: Marilyn Arnold’s Desert Trilogy” Connie Lamb and Robert Means “A Historical Survey of LDS Fiction: The Lee Library Collection” 12:00 - 1:45 Conference Luncheon Business Section Annual Awards President's Address by Marilyn Brown: "A Girl in Transition: A True Mormon Letter" 2-3:45 Concurrent Sessions A. Religion and Literature Kristen Allred “The Inner Other: Sharing Testimony through Personal Experiences” Gideon Burton “National Christian Fiction and Publishing: Models for LDS Literature?” Valerie Buck “One of the Last True Genres for Religious Fiction: Card and S. F.” Gene England “Pastwatch: The Redemption of Orson Scott Card” B. The Family in Literature Kelly Thompson “‘Unto the Third and Fourth Generations’: The Influence and Community of Families in Virginia Sorensen’s The Evening and the Morning” Bruce Jorgensen “Notes toward a ‘Marriage Group’ of Contemporary Mormon Stories” Margaret and Bruce Young “‘The holy cords too intrinse to unloose’: Mormon Families in Life and Fiction” 4-4:50 Plenary Session Cheiko Okasaki "Expressing Faith: A Literary Legacy" 6:30 Buffet and Readings by 2000 AML Award Winners Home of Ann Edwards Cannon, 75 O Street, Salt Lake City 2000 Membership Form Name____________________________________________ ________________ Address__________________________________________ ________________ City, State____________________________________ Zip_____________ Phone (___ )___________ E- mail_______________________________ ____$20.00 Member Dues ____$25.00 Couple ____$15.00 Student ____$10 Conference Registration _____ $100.00 Donation _____ $50.00 _____$25.00_____ Other _____ Total Send this form to: AML, 262 South Main, Springville, Utah 84643 ________________ Professor John Bennion 3117 JKHB English Department Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602-6280 Tel: (801) 378-3419 Fax: (801) 378-4705 - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 11:51:48 -0700 From: "Jim Cobabe" Subject: Re: [AML] What Is Art? Rob Pannoni: - --- I guess it must have been art. It sure as heck wasn't good for anything else. - --- Ah! That's one of the best definitions yet. - --- Jim Cobabe _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 12:08:52 -0700 From: "Christopher Bigelow" Subject: [AML] Instructions to Guadalahonky's: Correction Oops. I copied it straight from www.555-1212.com. That would be 136 E = 12300 S, I'm guessing. - -------- For a sample copy of IRREANTUM, a Mormon literary quarterly, send $4 to = the Association for Mormon Letters, 262 S. Main St., Springville, UT = 84663. >>> Jacob Proffitt 12/14 2:49 PM >>> On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 12:07:16 -0700, Christopher Bigelow wrote: >136 S 12300 S=20 Is this one of them newfangled quantum addresses? There's two souths in there... :) Jacob - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 12:55:56 -0700 From: Terry L Jeffress Subject: Re: [AML] Orson Scott CARD, _Lost Boys_ (Review) On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 01:05:59AM -0700, D. Michael Martindale wrote: > No, I don't agree with this at all. First of all, a character's religion > is hardly a "detail." It's an integral part of his life. I defy anyone > to write a novel-length story of someone "smoking a religion" without > giving it a brand name, and have the story feel satisfying. Many books > and films in the 20th century have ignored religion in people's lives, > but I also think that's a major defect in 20th century storytelling. On > the other hand, if you're going to include a religious character, a > generic religion is not likely to work. Not for a novel-length story or > feature-length movie. In my discussion about the use of details in fiction, I thought I had taken a step back from _Lost Boys_ and was discussing fiction in general. IMHO, if you include a detail in your story, that detail colors your story to some extent. If you need a religious leader you can choose a Mormon bishop, Baptist minister, Catholic priest, Buddhist lama, or whatever. The choice you make for that person has a fundamental impact on the course and tone of your story. If you include Mormon people and bring up their Mormonness in a story, that colors your story. People will bring all their preconceived notions about Mormons (true or not) and apply them to your characters. You can't help that. In fact you want that to happen. If you could not rely on readers bringing some history with them to your work, you would have to explain too much. If I want my character to encounter a red light at a busy urban intersection, I need the character to bring a mental construct of that intersection. Otherwise, short stories would have to run to novel lengths with description. If you bring religion into your story, it had better be there for a reason. I agree that a generic religious person won't work. But I contend that if you state that a given character in a story practices Native American religion (just to name one) with no further mention, that story won't work either. If the religion is "an integral part of [the character's] life," then you should demonstrate that the character's religious beliefs shaped the decisions the character makes and thus the outcome of the story. I said that you could replace the religion in _Lost Boys_ with any other religion to demonstrate that the religion had no bearing on the outcome. For me, that makes the religious content in _Lost Boys_ superfluous. Either Card should have not included religion, or he should have written an outcome that could only occur with religious characters. - -- Terry L Jeffress AML Webmaster and AML-List Review Archivist - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 15:46:16 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Shutting Down (Temporarily) Folks, It's time for me to get to the last-minute packing and loading, so I'm shutting down the List now. Back on Jan. 2. I look forward to seeing some of you at the AML-List dinner. In the meantime, happy reading/writing/what have you. Jonathan Langford AML-List Moderator - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 11:27:59 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Welcome Back Welcome AML-List Members, I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and not too inauspicious new year/century/millenium. (Yes, I'm one of those purists who argues that the new century etc. begins with 2001, thank you very much...) So we're back online again. I'd share with you a number of dazzling resolutions for AML-List, but I'm not sure I have any that are concrete enough to float at this point. Suffice it to say that I hope my work schedule will permit me to do a little more with helping to get stimulating discussions going on the List. Thanks as well to all those who attended the dinner on Dec. 18, and particularly to Chris Bigelow who organized it, although a sick child prevented him from making a late night of it. I enjoyed the conversation; I wish I had done a better job of mingling with more people. And thanks to all of you who weren't able to attend, but who make AML-List a more enjoyable and interesting place. I look forward to another year of good conversation with all of you, and wish you all the best in your various literary and nonliterary endeavors. Jonathan Langford AML-List Moderator - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #222 ******************************