From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #225 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 Friday, January 5 2001 Volume 01 : Number 225 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 15:39:07 -0500 From: Edward Hogan Subject: RE: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories C. S. Lewis' Narnia Books, with his science fiction ones right after that. I like them so much, I suppose, because I find that the Christian experience he describes is so similar to my own, and yet we come from quite different backgrounds. Ned - -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Hall [mailto:andrewrhall@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 10:51 PM To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com Subject: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories Time for another Andrew's poll. This month I'd like to ask everyone: What are your favorite non-Mormon stories about faith and/or religion? What was it about it/them that you liked? Andrew Hall Pittsburgh, PA _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. - - 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: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 15:17:29 -0800 (PST) From: Ed Snow Subject: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories Frederick Buechner's novel _Brendan_ is my favorite religious novel (Mormon or not). It's about about St. Brendan, one of St. Patrick's converts, who searched his whole life for earthly paradise--Eden--which he believed still existed on earth. He may have "discovered" America. He performs miracles sometimes, sometimes not, while missionarying with some quirky companions. His escapades are sacred and bawdy, hilarious and tragic. A part of the novel is the fictionalized "diary" of Brendan created in an amazingly archaic tone. While some consider his style mannered, I'm hooked. Buechner, a gifted novelist turned minister, wrote many other religious novels worthy of an LDS readership as well: _Godric_, _The Son of Laughter_ and _The Book of Bebb. His 3 volume memoir is wonderful too, as well as his many collections of sermons and meditations. I'm really surprised many Mormons have never heard of him. Annie Dillard is one of his frequent backscratching reviewers. Ed Snow ===== Among best sellers, Barnes & Noble ranks _Of Curious Workmanship: Musings on Things Mormon_ in its top 100 (thousand, that is). Available now at 10% off http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=5SLFMY1TYD&mscssid=HJW5QQU1SUS12HE1001PQJ9XJ7F17G3C&srefer=&isbn=1560851368 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 18:38:49 -0500 From: Merlyn J Clarke Subject: RE: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories Garrison Keillor's stories about Lake Wobegon and the Church of Perpetual Responsibility, where the volunteer work gets done because good people need to expiate their sins. Merlyn >From: Andrew Hall [mailto:andrewrhall@hotmail.com] >Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 10:51 PM >To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com >Subject: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories > > >Time for another Andrew's poll. >This month I'd like to ask everyone: >What are your favorite non-Mormon stories about >faith and/or religion? >What was it about it/them that you liked? > >Andrew Hall >Pittsburgh, PA > >_________________________________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. > > > > > >- >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 > > - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 10:52:09 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: [AML] (On Stage) Transcendence in Film, Pt. 1 ON STAGE Transcendence in Film (Part One) Eric Samuelsen I'm not a film scholar. I'm a theatre guy in a department that includes = film guys, and, as they are always quick to remind me, I don't really know = what I'm talking about when it comes to film criticism. I'm just a guy = with some training in scholarly matters who happens to see a lot of = flicks. So when I say that there's this fascinating body of films that = share certain characteristics and that might therefore constitute a genre, = please understand that 'genre' is a hot topic in film studies, and that = I'm probably getting it all wrong. So, there's my disclaimer. Ahem, = throat cleared, here we go: there's this fascinating body of films out = there that share certain characteristics and that might therefore = constitute a genre. I call them "films of transcendence" and I would = define the genre something like this: films that directly or indirectly = suggest the existence of another, better, reality beyond and above = everyday reality. Films, in other words, that suggest the existence of an = afterlife, or miracles, or God, or some other transcendent spiritual = reality. Transcendent films often depict painful or ugly or unhappy = realities, sometimes quite graphically. But they also depict something, = well, transcendent; something healing, somthing miraculous.=20 For now, I'd like to exclude films about angels from my genre. = Heck, I can define a genre any way I want to, and I don't like films about = angels. Angels in films always seem like something of a copout, and a = somewhat sentimental copout to boot, like we're afraid of real transcendenc= e, and so let's cute things up with a be-winged John Travolta smoking and = belching at us in Michael. Look no further than the Disney kiddie sport = film Angels in the Outfield, for example. Or that maudlin TV series = starring Michael Landon/Roma Downey. 'Nuff said. =20 I'd like to show what I mean by discussing four more or less = recent films that, in my opinion, have some measure of transcendence at = the very heart of the story. The first film is what I might call Transcendence Lite. _What = Dreams May Come_ has been discussed before on the List. It's a film from = '98 or '99, written by Ronald Bass and directed by Vincent Ward. Robin = Williams plays a physician who dies and goes to heaven, and then learns = that he has to go to hell to rescue his wife (Annabelle Sciorra) who has = committed suicide. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays the afterlife guide who helps = him sort this all out. The transcendence angle is quite obvious in this film: after all, = two thirds of the film takes place in heaven. At its best, the film = plumbs some genuine human emotions. It shows quite movingly the pain and = anguish of parents who have lost children (Williams and Sciorra's children = had been killed prior to his accident, and he meets them in the afterlife).= Still and all, I found the film quite irritating at times. For one = thing, Sciorra's character is an artist, and Williams' afterlife is set = in her paintings. This results in a kind of pretty pastel heaven, and I = spent most of the film convinced that it was actually hell, and that that = was going to be the big plot twist: he thinks he's in heaven, but actually = he's not. I'm sort of an art snob, and I thought the film made heaven = look, well, tacky. And of course, I was bugged because I thought I'd = guessed something and I'd been wrong, which is always annoying. Hell, on the other hand, was nicely grim and gothic, and the = scenes where Williams rescues Sciorra were quite affecting. Theologically,= I found the film very troubling. Sciorra's character's journey is = horrific. Her children die in one awful accident. Unable to deal with her = grief, she's briefly institutionalized, but finally begins to recover, in = large measure because of the love and support of her husband. Then he's = killed. She can't deal with it, and she commits suicide. The notion of = hell being a mental state of one's own creation was powerfully depicted; = she gets to live, eternally, in the state of anguish in which she died. = Where's God in all this? Where's the atonement? Where's even the = simplest human compassion? Okay, Robin Williams is able to go to her and = save her, and it all works out. But the film strongly suggests that that = sort of hubby-intervention is rare; that most people in her situation = don't get rescued. Ever. What an appalling thought. What a despicable = theology. When we talked about this film on the List, a lot of you liked it, = and I suppose it does urge us to contemplate the eternal consequences of = our earthly sorrows. Mostly I think it's an artistic and theological = failure. In part it fails because its depiction of transcendence is too = specific, too literal. Good transcendence is more mysterious, or perhaps = depicted more symbolically. From the Lite to the Grim: the next film I'd like to talk about is = a film a lot of you probably haven't seen and that I don't recommend. = It's a 1996 film called _Breaking the Waves_. Written and directed by the = Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier, it stars Emily Watson, who was nominated = for an Oscar for her performance. Watson plays Bess, an emotionally = disturbed young Scottish girl, who lives in a deeply religious island = community. She marries Jan (Stellan Skarsgard), who works on an oil = drilling rig out in the middle of the sea. Bess talks to God throughout = the film: she has these two-way conversations with Him, talking and = responding in her own voice. She's madly in love with Jan, so much so = that she can hardly bear it when he has to get on the helicopter that will = take him to work on the oil rig for his two or three month shift out = there. And then he's involved in an accident; he's nearly killed, and is = paralyzed for life. And rendered impotent. And also, the film suggests, = he's driven a little mad. Bess is devastated by his injury. And he tells her that their = marriage cannot survive it; specifically if he can't make love to her, he = won't survive mentally, and won't love her anymore. And then he tells her = that she must do something for him, to prove her love. She must have sex = with other men, and then come to the hospital and tell him about it. =20 At first, she can't even bear the thought of doing what he asks of = her. But he's still very ill, and when he has a medical crisis and almost = dies, she becomes convinced that God is punishing her for not obeying him. = (In fact, we see the conversation she has with God, and we hear God, = through her voice, telling her to obey her husband). And so she does it. = She has sex with total strangers. The film is quite graphic, but = unbearably painful; although you can see more than you probably want to, = your entire focus is on her face, as we see how utterly humiliating and = horrifying it is for her to have these sexual experiences, and how equally = awful it is to have to relive it by telling him about it all. I don't recommend this film. It's an ugly, sexually explicit = film. It's also not even remotely erotic. If you decide to rent it = anyway, don't read the next two paragraph; I'm going to give away the = ending. She tries to seduce Jan's doctor, a Dr. Richardson (Adrian = Rawlins). He's a kind and compassionate man, and of course turns her = down; he's deeply troubled by her behavior, and more by her explanation = for it, and he begins a process in which she will be institutionalized. = She also learns that Jan's health has deteriorated to the point that he's = dying; the doctors can no longer help him, and he has, at most, a few = hours to live. At this point, the film becomes all but unwatchable. She = escapes the bus taking her to the mental hospital. She has learned that a = certain boat anchored in the harbor has a crew so vicious that even the = town's prostitutes will no longer go out there. She rows to that boat, = and is violently gang-raped. She's taken to the hospital, so brutalized = that Dr. Richardson barely recognizes her. And she dies. Smiling, = because she did what God required of her. She sacrificed herself. The next scene is her funeral. It takes place on the oil rig. = And there, at the funeral, is her husband. Jan has recovered; he didn't = die. And he's walking; limping, to be sure, but walking. It worked; her = sacrifice saved him, and he knows it. And he's devastated by the = knowledge that, in his illness, he forced her to do what she did. And = yet, he's also . . . healed. And the film ends with a suggestion of her = own transcendence, a suggestion that she's gone to a better world.=20 I truly don't know what to make of _Breaking the Waves_. It's one = of the most troubling films I've ever seen. At one level, it could be = seen as a film about the atonement. Christ abased himself to save us; we = would, I'm sure, find Gethsemane unwatchable, unendurably painful. The = film certainly caused me to contemplate issues relating to the atonement. = And yet it's also a film of such cruelty. Do we participate in the film's = cruelty by vicariously experiencing it? Is the horror of the film = justified by the transcendence of its ending? Is Von Trier the woman-hatin= g sadist some of his critics have accused him of being? Or is he the new = Ingmar Bergman, the most interesting religious filmmaker going? I don't = know. It's a film I can't get out of my head. What I don't know is if = that's a good thing or not. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 10:52:09 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: [AML] (On Stage) Transcendence in Film, Pt. 2 ON STAGE Transcendence in Film (Part Two) Eric Samuelsen The next film I'd like to discuss is my personal favorite film of = 2000, and perhaps the best example of transcendent filmmaking I've seen in = awhile. Ridley Scott's _Gladiator_ was marketed as a big, brawny action = flick, WWF filmmaking at its tackiest. I found it utterly transcendent. Russell Crowe stars as Maximus, a Roman general in the era of = Marcus Aurelius. From the opening battle sequences to the final combat in = the Coliseum, the film shows the casual brutality and violence of ancient = Rome. It's a film Edward Gibbon would have approved, at least thematically= perhaps, except that Gibbon would have wanted to get the history right: = the Republic was not, in fact, restored in the third century. Far from = it. =20 It's a violent and ugly film about a violent and ugly era. We see = just how the Roman legions conducted warfare, and we see just how = gladiators died in the Games. The digitally enhancements now available to = filmmakers enable Scott to really show us a shower of Roman arrows, for = example. (Scott was also able to digitally insert images of the late = Oliver Reed, who died during the making of film, into scenes had not yet = been shot at the time of his death, an ironically transcendent devise = conferring a kind of technological immortality.) =20 And yet, it's also one of the best films I've ever seen about the = afterlife, and the possibility of eternal marriage. Maximus is consumed = throughout the film with two thoughts. First, he wants to do his duty. = His emperor gave him an assignment before he died, and Maximus is a loyal = soldier: he will obey his orders, no matter how impossible they may seem. = His stolid, quintessentially Roman loyalty makes him a very appealing and = powerful character, fleshing out someone who might otherwise be nothing = more than a Victor Mature character, a butt-kicking hunk. But Maximus has = one other obsession. He wants to go to the afterlife and see his wife and = son again. And when they're killed, and when he's nearly killed, we see = his version of heaven: a villa, with a field of ripe grain. And then, at = the end of the film, he dies in the arena, and we see a gate. And the = gate opens. And his wife and son are waiting to greet him. I've seen it = three times, and I cried every time. I so want that to be what's waiting = for me. Transcendent films are, at their best, often R-rated. It's = important to recognize that; the best films dealing with transcendence = contrast it with very ugly realities. These films remind us that what = awaits us is better than what we have here; to do so, they also tend to = show us some fairly nasty realities. Even a not-so-good transcendent film, = like _What Dreams May Come_, show us how painful and difficult life can, and = focus on grief and pain and sorrow, to contrast that reality with a better = reality to come. _Gladiator_ shows us a life filled with violence and death. = And it also shows how faith can survive in a warrior. It's a film Moroni = would have understood. I want to briefly touch on two remarkable films that deal with = transcendence in very different ways. I think the second Babe film, _Babe: = Pig In The City_, which was widely trashed by critics, is one of the finest = films of the nineties, and a superb film about religious values. Like = _Gladiator_, it gives us a glimpse of a most appealing heaven, in the midst = of death and despair. The best children's literature works on multiple = layers, and the best children's films do the same; the Babe films reach = levels of immortality achieved in literature only by E. B. White, Richard = Adams and C. S. Lewis. (The Deseret News critic actually liked the Jim = Carrey _Grinch_ better than _Pig in the City_, prima facie evidence of either = incompetence or someone who just doesn't have good taste.) We've also = spent a lot of time on the List talking about _American Beauty_. Certainly = it meets my definition of transcendent filmmaking, and I did enjoy it. My = problem with it is that it makes the afterlife seem somehow consequenceless= . That troubles me theologically. And I was very bothered by the Marine = colonel next door, played by Chris Cooper, who has made an entire career = playing deranged authority figures. The military officer as martinet: = such a cliche. =20 The last film I want to bring up is just out. Billy Bob Thornton = directed an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's _All the Pretty Horses_. I = haven't read the novel, and can't really comment on the faithfulness (or = lack thereof) of the adaptation. It's a stunning film visually, I'll say = that; south Texas and Mexico have never looked so great, and horses are = really astonishingly photogenic animals. Matt Damon's a fine actor, and = it's a real pleasure seeing Sam Shepherd act again, and seeing Bruce Dern = as a non-psycho for a change. But what's interesting about this film is = its structure. Am I nuts, or is this film a Western about the plan of = salvation? Framing the film are two conversations in which Matt Damon asks = this question: does God look out for people? The answer the film seems to = provide is a troubling one: God looks out for Anglo movie stars, but = Mexicans? Not so much. I'm exaggerating, and I certainly don't want to = accuse anyone of racism, but I was bothered by some of the ways in which = Mexican characters were portrayed. That aside, the film does begin and end with a question about God. = The rest of the structure goes as follows. Two Texas ranchhands (Damon = and Henry Thomas), decide to go to Mexico to work on a ranch. While = there, they have numerous adventures. Damon falls in love with his boss's = daughter, they meet a troublemaking American kid, who gets them in = trouble, they go to prison, they're nearly killed, and then finally they = go back to Texas. So try this on: the film is about the plan of salvation.= Crossing the Rio Grande (which both coming and going is treated by = Thornton as a tremendously portentous event) marks birth and death. So = the early scenes in Texas are the pre-earth life. The scenes in Mexico = represent mortality. Then the scenes in Texas late in the film represent = the final judgment. (Damon is immediately arrested upon his return to = Texas, and is pronounced a good person by the Judge, played by Dern. Which = is more or less where the film ends.) I'll take this a step further. The Law Damon has to obey while in = mortality might be termed 'the Code of the West.' It's all very manly and = Western. You don't let someone steal your horse. If they do, you gotta = get it back. You respect women, and fight to protect their honor, but you = also follow your heart, and if you're in love, you do anything you = honorably can to be with her. You never start a fight, but you do defend = yourself. You work hard, and you set yourself difficult challenges, and = you meet them. You stick by your friends, no matter what. You help the = helpless, though you are allowed to get exasperated at them. And = ultimately, you're judged by how well you've done. The film focuses on these simple rules, and on staunch-and-stalwart= Damon's efforts to follow them. And he is judged fit at the end of the = film. And the film also gives us a glimpse of the afterlife. Damon is = nearly killed in a knife fight (one he didn't start, of course), and he = sees a vision of a kind of Texas-laconic afterlife, which, he's told, is = 'pretty much like anywhere else.' I'm not a fan, particularly, of this kind of Western myth-making. = I thought it was an interesting script. I did think the parallels with = the plan of salvation were interesting. But as a transcendent film, it = doesn't match the power and craft of _Gladiator_. =20 Still, it's an interesting genre, and one that we Mormon types = should find of particular relevance. Of course, _God's Army_ would also fit = the genre. Does anyone else have any nominees? A few other transcendent = films I can think of might include _Raising Arizona_, _The Hudsucker Proxy_, = _Places in the Heart_, I suppose the Star Wars films (though they do it = quite badly), _Being John Malkovich_, maybe _Heaven Can Wait_, _Ghost_ (gag). = _The Sixth Sense_, maybe, though I'd kind of like to declare horror flicks = out of bounds, along with angel flicks. After all, I'm defining the genre = here, and can make up the rules as I go along. Anyone have suggestions to = make? In any case, here are a bunch of films doing, in part, what we've = argued Mormon artists could and perhaps should do; deal directly and = openly with religious issues. Some are successful, some aren't. What = lessons can we learn? I have some ideas, but I'll save them for another = column. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 17:46:58 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Characters (was: CARD, _Lost Boys_) Terry Jeffress writes: If you include a >snake in your story, you should have a reason for using a snake and >not a spider or a lobster. Whatever animal you choose brings a >heritage of myth and symbolism. The reader brings experience with >that creature to your text -- both personal experience and experiences >from other texts. Your text might cause the reader to solidify or >change their opinion of that creature. By placing a fictional element >in a poorly constructed story, you limit the effectiveness of your >overall and secondary messages you wanted to convey with that element. >And if that element causes the weakness in your story, then you should >cut or revise. I don't think I agree with this. In particular, I'm not sure I agree with this in the context of Card's _Lost Boys_ (although I've already written why my opinion on this particular piece may be suspect, since I did not read the entire work and read it out of order). But I also think I disagree with the description of good storytelling that Terry seems to be relying on here, in arguing that a character should not be Mormon unless that Mormonness "makes a difference" to the story itself. This theory of the story that Terry propounds is a common one--the notion that every element of a story should be carefully crafted and meaningful, under the author's control, contributing to the overall effect of the story--but it's not the only possible theory of storytelling, nor do I think it is the most persuasive theory. I recall, for example, Bakhtin's theory of the novel, which, as well as I can explain (or indeed understand) it, talks of the novel as a space inhabited by many different voices, mediated perhaps but not necessarily under the control of the writer--indeed, to the degree that all the voices of the novel are the writer's voice in disguise, I believe Bakhtin would label the story not truly a novel at all. In a sense, the story becomes the occasion of the conversation between characters, in the Bakhtinian definition. I'm not really arguing that _Lost Boys_ is a novel in the Bakhtinian sense. But I think that the central *dramatic* event of the story (the death of the family's son and his return as a ghost)--the resolution of which is not, Terry complains, related to the Mormonness of the characters in a way that justifies that Mormonness--is not really the heart of the story Card is trying to tell. The center of the novel is the Mormon family and what happens to them, of which the murder of a child and his reappearance as a ghost is merely the culminating incident. To some degree it is the healing and resolving incident--since it opens up the way for the family to really start communicating again about what's really important to them. But the story Card is telling is the story of what happens to that particular Mormon family in course of that year--not, fundamentally, a ghost story. To say that the characters' Mormonness is extraneous because it doesn't affect how they respond to that event is, in my opinion, to place the ghost story above the story of the family. If you see the story of the family as central (as I do), and the event of the ghost as contributing to that story--instead of vice versa--then the "problem" of the family's unjustified Mormonness vanishes, in my opinion. Obviously Card's story does not work equally well for all readers. It's revealing, for instance, that Terry Jeffress, an experienced sf&f reader, and D. Michael Martindale, a Scott Card fan, find this particular story deeply flawed. It may be that there's a problem with this novel in that it goes too far in assuming the trappings of a horror story when, I would argue, that's not really what it is. But I disagree that the presence of the Mormon elements themselves is a problem. Rather, I think it's at the heart of the story Card is attempting to tell--a story which connects to some readers, at least. And as a general point, I think it's important not to place an unnecessarily high standard for the presence of Mormon characters and Mormon elements in storytelling, when, in fact, I think that the desire to write about a Mormon character is sufficient justification for doing so. Jonathan Langford speaking for myself, not the List jlangfor@pressenter.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 17:52:42 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: RE: [AML] Editorial: Micro-Politics and Power Structures I think that an individual person's experience (male or female) in Sunday School classes and other Church settings is likely to depend highly on the particulars of that ward, that meeting, that teacher, etc. I've been in classes--I'm in one right now--where comments seem to be welcome from pretty much everyone (though I've heard comments from some class members who get fed up with people, presumably such as myself, "interrupting" the lesson with their comments). I've been in other classes where my comments tended to bring on a kind of glassy-eyed response from the teacher--not I think because they were particularly controversial, but because she didn't know quite how to deal with them, since they weren't part of where she was planning to go with the lesson. I was going to say more about this, but suddenly I'm experiencing a stupid of thought, so I'll stop... Jonathan Langford speaking for myself, not the List jlangfor@pressenter.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 16:35:44 -0700 From: Gerald G Enos Subject: [AML] Re: Telepathy and Magic Ronn, As far as telapathy goes, I guess I have it. At least I know when it is my sister calling or when I need to call her and so does she. We also say the same thing at the same time. Of course we were in the womb together too. But anyway couldn't telapathy be a gift of the Spirit? Or at least simular to at least one of them. And as far as magic is concerned, if you went back in time 200 years with a flashlight wouldn't they think you could do magic. It isn't nessecarly magic. It just is beyond explaination in our realm of experience. Anyway that is my take on it. Konnie Enos ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 16:48:58 -0700 From: Gerald G Enos Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories Andrew, My favorite book about faith is "Hinds' Feet in High Places" by Hannah Hurnard printed by Barbour and Co. The story is purely symbolic but does a great job of making the purpose of life clear and giving a better understanding of Christ. There are some points that I don't agree with but it is well writen and does clearly talk of faith in Christ. As far as that goes you can't forget any of C.S. Lewis' stuff. Even the Narnia books have alot of sybolism and talk of Chirst. (I haven't had the oppertunity to read all of his work yet but what I have read would get my vote and I have to assume that the rest would too.) Konnie Enos ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 16:57:13 -0700 From: "ROY SCHMIDT" Subject: RE: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories Simple minded soul that I am, my all time favorite is Dickens' _A Christmas Carol_. I fell it love with is as a kid, and still read it every couple of years. A finer example of sin, repentance, forgiveness, and redemption is hard to find. You didn't ask, but my favorite film version is the one featuring Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge. Roy Schmidt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 17:38:31 -0700 From: Barbara@techvoice.com (Barbara R. Hume) Subject: RE: [AML] Editorial: Micro-Politics and Power Structures > Since moving back to >Utah, there is no balance of thought in our meetings. I miss that. I don't >consider myself an intellectual, but I still feel intellectually deprived. Maybe you're just in the wrong ward, Nan. In my ward individuality is appreciated and applauded. Yes, even among the women. Half of the Sunday School and Relief Society teachers are single--some of us even divorced! Gasp! Teachers pull from their job experiences and professional experiences to enrich the lessons. We talk about books and politics and environmental issues, not just about potty-training or supporting our husbands. Many of the young women in my ward who are living lives that would be heck for me--stay-at-home moms--are bright, intellectually curious, thoughtful, nonjudgmental people. Their husbands are lucky to have them, and most are smart enough to know it. Gosh, come to think of it, several of these women are even Democrats! barbara hume - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 12:51:38 +1100 From: "Covell, Jason" Subject: RE: [AML] Poetry I would say my tastes ran to the same sort of old masters, but I have never felt the lack of worthy modern successors. I experience the same bristle of hairs on my neck (vide Housman) from Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott as from Hopkins and Dickinson - and I get the same haunting by snippets of verse that come to me at odd times and leave me all tingly, gaping at the middle distance. I feel that their sheer craft (and that of some other contemporaries or recent contemporaries) is in no way diminished just by no longer living in English poetry's golden or silver ages. But that's me. I also think that among 20th century poets, Osip Mandelstam exceeds all but a very few all-time greats in English. I've had the privilege of reading him in Russian, which lends its own perspective. Again, I think craft is the thing - it's not a dead art, just a rare one (as it's always been). The "academic" style is mostly pretty refrigerating, I do agree. On an LDS-lit note, I've got an open question for the list. I've been trying to track down a poem (and its author) which I chanced across in (I think) the Deseret News or Church News, circa December 1996. The poem described a simple scene, of a father rehearsing in an empty font with his child, for the child's upcoming baptism. I read it quickly, passed it to the family I was staying with in Utah and stabbed my finger at it. "There! That's a real poem." Never saw it again, and I can't remember the author or any other identifying details. If this seems familiar, or indeed if the author is on the list, I'd love to find out what it was and have a chance to re-read. This was one of my first encounters with LDS lit, and it made a strong impression... but all that's for another post. Jason Covell - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 21:09:29 -0700 From: "Jim Cobabe" Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories Mike Quinn's works of "New Mormon History". Mike's fiction is better written than the classic trashy anti-mormon stuff, and much more entertaining than Fawn Brodie. Also the only writings I can recall where the footnotes generally outweigh the text by a significant margin. - --- 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: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 22:51:14 -0600 From: "Rose Green" Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories One of my favorites is Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. The beauty of hope realized when things work out for the ordinary person and the anguish of the consequences of wrong choices seem to fit in well in an LDs context. Tolstoy makes the characters and their struggles (with both marriage and faith in a larger context) very real, something that many people of many philosophies have been able to relate to. Hugo's Les Miserables, for the same reasons others have said--wonderful themes of redemption and the chance to make something good out of something bad. C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia. It's the first thing I read to my kids, even though I know they're too young to understand anything. Someday they will, first on the basic surface story level, and eventually on the spiritual level. Rose Green - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 23:26:00 -0700 From: Scott and Marny Parkin Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Religious Stories Two favorites: _Les Miserables_ which is about a great many things, with personal religion as one of them. I was very impressed by what I saw as a depiction of real religion stripped of the show. John Irving's _A Prayer for Owen Meany_ is arguably the most straight-forward, non-affected story I've ever read about one character's search for the basis of religion or spirituality or whatever it is that lives below the level of specific creed. The book was recommended to me by list member J. Scott Bronson, and is the best book I've read in quite some time. I would love to see a Mormon write a novel like _A Prayer for Owen Meany_ that can be faithful, doubtful, cynical, confused, idealistic, and hopeful all at the same time. This strikes me as more representative of my own experience with both the public and the private religion that I've known. Scott Parkin - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 16:55:06 -0700 From: Gerald G Enos Subject: Re: [AML] Telepathy and Magic (was: Mormon Characters) Marsha, You expressed it better then I did, but I agree. Konnie Enos ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 11:34:37 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Alan MITCHELL, _Angel of the Danube_ (Review) Author: Alan Rex Mitchell Title: Angel of the Danube Publisher: Bonneville Books Date of publication: 2000 Softcover Number of pages: 197 pp. Cost: $12.95 Reviewed by Ruth Starkman. _Angel of the Danube_ is the story of a recently returned missionary, Barry Monroe, who wanders about Southern California without much direction after serving a mission to Austria. An encounter with a Mormon patriarch in the Mojave Desert inspires Monroe to finish his missionary journal and he begins to recall his former life of service for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first part of the novel relates the friendship between Elder Monroe and his Canadian companion, Vidic, whom he calls "Unts." Together they meet a woman several years older than they, Anna Magdalena, who tells them the story of the angel of the Danube, in which an angel warns the fishermen of the ancient Danube of a disastrous flood. This story presents to Elder Monroe a spiritual parallel to the Mormon worldview. Deeply moved, the protagonist replenishes his spiritual powers for the Sisyphian task of converting the Austrians, who, for their part, show little interest in his message, and when they do, they fall away very quickly. Once he is transferred to Vienna, however, the prophetic vision seems dampened. Elder Monroe becomes district leader for a group of young men, whose missionary life resembles more college-age Angst than the spiritual purity of church service. Indeed, described in laid-back California lingo the Vienna mission appears a life more realist than idealist, one replete with pranks, laziness, pinball playing, opera-going and manic prophetic grandstanding. Where _Angel of the Danube_ takes a few daring plunges in its representation of missionary everydayness, it remains nevertheless a very traditional coming of age and religious odyssey story. Most importantly, _Angel_ holds fast to its vision of faith. Doubt looms large in the endless gray of Vienna, with its baroque melancholy and strange, sometimes debauched customs. Will the _Book of Mormon_ ever be a big seller in Austria, where new wine is the main crop in the hilly countryside, Roman Catholicism, practiced or not, appears an inexorable destiny, and Fasching (carnival) lets everything all hang out? Probably not. Daunted by this reality, the young dirt-biker-dude-missionary still manages to reach people and sometimes share moments of religious epiphany. Were Elder Monroe's epiphanies not the best writing in the novel, such steadfast spirituality in the face of disappointment could have seemed trite, like the formulaic cant of the overly assured. This is not the case, due to the originality and genuine emotion of the epiphanies. Most are inspired by encounters with Austrian folklore, like the story of the angel of the Danube. Folkish figures from Charlemagne to a stone fox filled with gold provide an opportunity for Elder Monroe to extrapolate the meaning of humanity in God's universe. No less moving for him is his (slightly racy) visit to the opera with two Austrian girls, in which his attentions are focused less on his women escorts than on the spirit that inhabits the soprano's singing. Of course women aren't far from Elder Monroe's imagination as he struggles to remain chaste and begin to contemplate his future. In fact, it's his consternation over relationships that leaves him dazed and confused upon return to California. As Monroe begins to drift at home he uncovers the essential dilemma of modern life: its fundamental failure to bring meaning to the life of the individual. Faced with options that look deadening from all sides, transforming his missionary skills into empty salesmanship like a former acquaintance, bumming on the beach with surfers and freaks, mastering some pitiful niche like the UCLA professor whom he visits, or passing out at rock concerts like his babe of date--Monroe begins to feel lost. Such a benumbed life is not merely senseless and squalid, it's disenchanted, and the only thing that will "re-enchant" it, so to speak, is faith, that, and love. In the end, Elder Monroe finds both. And yet, this is where _Angel of the Danube_ gets a little shaky as well. At the very moment Elder Monroe and his newly discovered beloved are confessing their love for each other, the dialogue stumbles into somewhat stilted discussion of the church. Surely, the young and faithful would express their love as a shared religious commitment, but the dialogue here is clunky rather than warm-hearted and personal. There are a couple other minor bumps in the beginning and penultimate moments. But happily, _Angel of the Danube_ succeeds with a convincing and touching final image that entwines the folklore thread with a larger message of love. It's a great book. Unpretentious, funny and moving. I recommend it not only for missionaries returned from Vienna, but also for those interested in Austria from a unique perspective and those curious about the spiritual journey of a young Mormon missionary. Ruth Starkman - - 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 #225 ******************************