From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #355 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, June 12 2001 Volume 01 : Number 355 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 12:26:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Ed Snow Subject: Re: [AML] Joel and Ethan COEN, _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ (Film) I'm convinced R.W. Rasband and I were separated at birth. I also loved _O Brother_. I even bought the soundtrack (I'm suggesting a new AML-List test for whether items are on topic: 7 degrees of Wallace Stegner. There's a Mormon connection here since the movie uses the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain," a Stegner novel). I never feel so many simultaneous conflicting emotions as I do when I watch a Coen brothers movie (or go to church). Here's but one example. The baptismal scene is eeriely divine in its beauty and spirituality, especially with Alison Krauss singing, acappela, "Down to the River to Pray," along with a backup Baptist choir. And the comic elements and the correspondence to the lotus eaters in the Odyssey do not detract one iota from the spiritual experience one feels in watching this episode, but instead, enhance it with a reverent kind of comic relief. I don't understand why this movie didn't win any Oscars. It was at least as good as "Gladiator", "Crouching Tiger" or "Traffic." Ed ===== Read free excerpts from _Of Curious Workmanship: Musings on Things Mormon_, a Signature Books Bestseller at http://www.signaturebooks.com/bestsell.htm __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 13:51:24 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Literature as Distinct? (comp) > > >From ViKimball@aol.com Fri Jun 08 13:57:52 2001 > > In a message dated 6/8/01 12:36:03 PM Central Daylight Time, > rareyellow@yahoo.com writes: > > << If LDS writers close themselves off from non-LDS > > voices, and draw only from > > LDS sources, then perhaps there will be a kind of > > inbreeding of LDS voice, > > and Zion will become more and more insular and > > impenetrable and narrow and > > cleft-footed. > >> > > I hope I see a Mormon version of "Fiddler on the Roof" in my lifetime. I know > we have the talent, but I think it is the fear of big brother watching that > has prevented such a production to date. I don't think our own people are a mature enough audience. Tevya, for instance, breaks two of his culture's traditions to allow two of his daughters to marry. Mormons would not see him as a loving father for letting his daughter marry outside the temple--they would see him as a weak father. We tend to see Tevya, however, as a hero for going against his traditions because he loves his children more. And let's not forget the fake dream that Tevya has. Would we continue to see a character who lied about a vision to his wife as in a favorable light? Thom Duncan - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 16:06:25 EDT From: Derek1966@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] MN Salt Lake Tribune Looks at Recent LDS Books: Salt Lake Tribune In a message dated 6/11/01 12:45:25 PM, lajackson@juno.com writes: << "Married for Better, Not Worse," by Stephen R. Covey and "The Fourteen Secrets to a Happy Marriage," by the Lundbergs. >> Actually, this is one book entitled "Married for Better, Not Worse: The Fourteen Secrets to a Happy Marriage," written by Gary & Joy Lundberg. Not sure how Stephen Covey's name got in there. John Perry - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 23:20:50 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Mormon Visual Trappings (comp2) >From renatorigo@bol.com.br Sat Jun 09 05:59:41 2001 > Do you believe God wants you with skirts or ties? We only need to wear "normal" clothes to go to church.. I had my baptism in 1999 and my wife didn=B4t want to have her baptism because of strange things that happened at Church. We usually went to Church without ties and skirts. I hate ties and my wife love pants. After a few months the bishop asked us to change our clothes because of other members that were abandoning the "standard" clothes. The respect is in your heart...in your faith... THE REST IS THE REST... Renato - ----------------------------------------- >From Jacob@proffitt.com Mon Jun 11 12:58:31 2001 Chris Bigelow wrote: > >From ChrisB@enrich.com Fri Jun 08 12:54:47 2001 > > Jacob, I thought I remembered you saying that you used to wear colored > shirts and grow facial hair, but then you moved to Utah and decided to > conform completely by shaving and wearing white shirts. Was that somebody > else entirely, or did I just misremember your earlier post? > > Congratulations on keeping the goatee, and may it continue to serve you > well. Misremembered. I said I stopped nonconformity for its own sake. I can't think of any good reason to wear non-white shirts to church, so I don't bother justifying it any more. Kept the beard for reasons I've already expressed. I see no problem conforming if it is harmless. Jacob Proffitt - ----------------------------------------------- >From annette@lyfe.com Mon Jun 11 15:39:09 2001 I think it's sad when artists feel the need to set themselves apart with trappings like multiple earrings and facial hair. I have no problem with either "trapping," for what it's worth. I know many men who look distinguished with beards, although I personally don't like the look of goatees. (My brother-in-law grew a beard while he had the chance before his mission, and he looked great. Maybe when he graduates from BYU he'll grow it back.) I do have a problem when members of the church grow a beard or sport some other trapping to make a statement of non-conformity--because that statement generally says, "I am not one of you." Since when are we supposed to be divisive? Aren't we supposed to be united? That's the point of building Zion, isn't it? Of course, that doesn't mean we should be clones, but it tell me that we shouldn't make a point of drawing a line and standing on the other side of it just to be different. Annette Lyon - --------------------------------------------- >From Chris.Bigelow@unicitynetwork.com Mon Jun 11 16:52:32 2001 One major Mormon visual trapping is the "celestial smile" of the curving garment neckline visible beneath thinner-fabricked shirts (mostly on males, I guess--on women you usually see the square-shaped neckline from the back). In Utah, occassionally you will see a local TV commercial with the spokesman's celestial smile visible, sometimes I think purposely so. I work in the shadow of Geneva Steel in Utah County, but despite its Mormon origins this company has evolved to probably more than half non-Mormon, and by far my best indicator--short of asking them pointblank--of who is Mormon is whether I spot the celestial smile. When I peoplewatch in downtown SLC, trying to decide whether they're active Mormons or not is one of my focuses, and the celestial smile is the key tool. In my missionary memoir, I include numerous garment anecdotes, short of stating what the symbols actually mean (but I do describe the appearance of the symbols). It's set in Australia, and I describe myself having to get used to the fact that Australian men commonly wear T-shirts with the same scoop-shaped neckline often visible beneath fabric. To verify whether they are Mormon or not, you have to take it a step further and look for the outline of the sleeves, which are usually of the wifebeater variety in Australia. Anyway, don't we make certain assumptions about people we talk to and interact with if we can see their garments? I could even see a line in fiction, "Bessie noticed the vacuum salesman's garment outline, so she felt comfortable inviting him in for a drink, though she was determined not to buy anything." In fact, I wonder if, scanning through "Brigham City" carefully, any garment lines show. Maybe the garment lines are even visible at times on the murderer, which would help keep Mormon audiences from suspecting him, even if just on the subconscious level. If Dutcher didn't do anything along those lines, it was a missed opportunity. But I didn't consciously think of it while viewing the movie--I'd have to watch again, which I will on video. Chris Bigelow - ----------------------------------------------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 23:21:04 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Value of Artists (comp2) >From renatorigo@bol.com.br Sat Jun 09 06:11:20 2001 > Writing is a work as others...of course you need to make money with it... The problem is: 1)Art is a work only an artist can do ; 2)Sometimes good art doesn=B4t make money and bad art sometimes makes money; 3)If you put the action, "making money", in front of the art you will have a little probability of success; 4)If you make a good work (independent of kind of the work)you will have monetary success; The money usually will be the consequence of good work; 5) For me, for example, it would be easier to make money working in Mc Donalds than writing a book. As a writer I=B4m a good reader... :-) Working in Mc Donalds it would be easy to become the Manager.... Renato - ----------------------------------------------- >From bwillson01@email.msn.com Mon Jun 11 14:03:00 2001 Anna Wight wrote: > >But lets say you're starting a new community. Out in the >middle of nowhereYou have a group of people. What >do people need? They need food. So hopefully, you >have farmers. You also need shelter, so you need >people to build just basic simple shelter. You need >medical people to take care of illness and injury. You >need people to know how to cook, clean, sew etc, >and those who can teach those skills to others. You >need to create laws and those who will enforce those >laws. > >Once you have met basic needs, then you have time to >do other things. Such as creating works of art, writing >music and stories, designing fashions, orturning those >humble pieces of shelter into great works of architecture. [MOD snip] If you take a group of people, any group of people, and put them out in the middle of nowhere, IMHO they will survive, unless they are totally mentally and physically disabled, or the biosphere they are deposited in is totally bereft of the nescessities of life. I think anyone can learn to forage for food, hunt and gather, plant and harvest, build a rudimentary shelter, cloth themselves, if only with fig leaves and learn to get along. On the other hand only a small percentage of these starter people will have the gift of the Muse. Therefore the arts and sciences will be slower in manifesting themselves in your new colony if you only choose farmers, builders, and hunters. As far as laws go, the only law these new colonists really need is the law of the gospel. I think they would survive quite nicely without lawyers. As far as the arts go, I like what William Carlos Williams said: It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserable every day for lack of what is found there. Regards, Bill Willson - ----------------------------------------------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 13:17:54 -0500 From: "REWIGHT" Subject: Re: [AML] Critique of Writing A rejection letter doesn't mean never, just not yet. > > -- > Terry Jeffress I think I'm going to post that sentence on my computer. I just got a rejection letter today for my book. It's hard even though I've been trying to mentally prepare myself for it. Since it was a form rejection it didn't give me any clues as to what's wrong with it. So, I'm sending it out again today. Anna Wight - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 13:24:35 -0500 From: "REWIGHT" Subject: Re: [AML] Critique of Writing I was taking a class in creative writting > once and the teacher suggested that I had to many characters in the story > so I took some of them out. Now sometimes I wonder if that had been the > right thing to do and no matter how hard I try I can't but them back in. > (It was probably the right thing to do.) I guess if you can't get them back in, they weren't meant to be there. Then a couple of years ago, in > a critique group I had joined, an other published author suggested that I > change the name of most of my charactors because most of the names > started in A. She also said that my main charactors name should be > changed for reasons other then it started with A. Anyway I listened and > changed the A names except for the main charactor's because I feel that > her name is an essential part of the story. The problem with having characters who's names all start with the same letter, is that it's too confusing for the reader. Even only two characters with the same letter can get confusing. Certainly in real life, families may give all their children names with the same letter, or worse, names that all sound alike (Charlene, Darlene, Marlene, and Arlene), it doesn't work that well in fiction. I remember on one list writing a story with several other writers and everyone unintentionally picked names beginning with A. It got so confusing I couldn't tell who was who anymore. Even a conversation between Rachel and Rebecca, or Bill and Bob can drive the reader nuts. Anna Wight - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 14:28:29 -0600 From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: [AML] Interesting Good Guys I recently read an inspirational (as a marketing category) novel that illustrated a couple of points we've discussed on the list. The book is Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. The plot is based on the Old Testament book of Hosea, the prophet who had to keep redeeming his wife from a life of prostitution. The book starts around 1850. In the novel, Angel is sold into prostitution at the age of eight, and ten years later a decent man named Michael takes her out of the brothel and marries her. God has told him to do this, and he trusts God to tell him the right thing. The woman, hardened by years of abuse and degradation, breaks his heart over and over, but she eventually learns about Christlike love from seeing it exemplified in her husband. She runs away from him several times before she accepts God's forgiveness, but in the end she becomes worthy of his love. Her name is Sarah, and although she'd been told she cannot have children, she does give him some. His character's name is Michael Hosea. One thing I liked about the book is that Michael is a good man, but he is not boring. Writers often struggle with the fact that the villains seem more compelling than the good guys. Michael is incredibly strong, both physically and spiritually, and he eventually receives the reward God has promised him for obedience to very difficult commands. The villain, who seems capable of controlling everything in the beginning, eventually becomes smaller and more fearful as other characters are strengthened by God's love and can no longer be intimidated. The other thing I found interesting is that God is a character in the book, and I think the writer uses that well. God speaks to the characters when they are open to him, and it's all very natural. I like that. Angel is resistant to Michael's and God's love for a very long time. The writer says she was writing out of her own experience of having been pig-headed in the same way. I can relate-- barbara hume - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 17:58:33 EDT From: OmahaMom@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] Value of Experience It might be worthwhile to interject here that men and women usually don't think alike (probably a hormonal thing). I've talked to lots of folks, and although they may often reach the same conclusions--his thought processes went one way, hers went another. There are those who will argue that a lot of it is sociological conditioning, but there have been studies done that indicate very different processes in problem solving, even though a similar solution is derived at. Men and women have different concepts of the world we live in. We often learn the same things differently. We may end up with similar belief patterns, similar testimonies, similar knowledge, similar experiences, etc.--but a very vast majority of the time it wasn't because we looked at it in exactly the same way. Within a gender, there is also wide variation in reaction, processing & conclusion, because we are unique individuals...but gender similarities are there whether we want to admit it or not. Karen Tippets - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 16:34:37 -0700 From: Jerry Tyner Subject: RE: [AML] Missionary Stories (comp) I find it interesting that you say your mission presidents were not involved in your mission or missionary life. I had a very different experience. In the time I served in the Montana Billings mission I had two mission presidents. I saw them personally only at Zone and Mission Conferences but we had to write a report to them and our leaders weekly. I knew they read mine because several times I received a hand written note from them of encouragement. I also had a very heart felt interview with them each time I saw them including my last interview. I just had this overwhelming feeling that they knew us, loved us, prayed for each of us individually and were divinely inspired for the good of all of us. The things they taught us or asked us to do either came true in my life or other and we all knew by our own experience or by watching others that is something went wrong it was because we had not followed our President's council. I guess every mission as well as every missionary is different. Jerry Tyner - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 19:21:47 -0400 From: Richard Johnson Subject: Re: [AML] Missionary Stories >> > In my mission, I didn't think the mission president was involved much > with the missionaries. I saw him once a month with a large group of > other Elders and unless I screwed up I don't think he ever heard of > me. > I had three different mission presidents during my mission and the > same > pattern existed with all three. Unless you are an AP or screw up > publicly a lot, you just aren't going to have the mission president > involved with you very much. my constant thought always deals with the way we assume that all experience is the same as our own. I served under two mission presidents who were as unlike as oil and water, but I confess that my experience was much like yours. In contrast however; I spent much of yesterday in the company of a mission president. He came to this area because the Savannah Stake Single Adult/ Young Single Adult group(s) had invited him to be the speaker at a fireside (I am the High Council Advisor to the Group). I was expecting him to be on time etc., but didn't expect to see him at anytime until the fireside. I had been assigned to be the "High Council Speaker" in one of the smaller branches on the periphery of the Stake. While sitting on the stand, I looked out upon the congregation and behold, thus sitteth the Mission President. I quietly asked the Branch President if he were expecting the Mission President and he indicated not. After meetings I asked the pres. how he happened to show up at this Branch. His answer was revelatory. "Sis. - ---(I am not being cute with the names. One of the unpleasant facts of my current health status is that I can't remember anybody's name %$*&+#@) and I don't have any particular assignment on Sundays so we try to go to a different congregation in the Mission each Sunday. That way we can stay in touch with our missionaries." "Do you contact them in advance?" I asked. "No, not really, but they all know we are likely to show up any time at all. They seem to enjoy the visits." When the fireside began at seven two missionaries and the brother with whom they were doing a split showed up. " We will have to leave early because we have an appointment, but when we read in the program that he was going to be here, we wanted to say hello to Pres.---" That was followed by hugs all round between the missionaries and their mission president and wife (without the proverbial back slapping) They sat quietly in the meeting for about half an hour then slipped out to go to their appointment. Certainly an mission president experience that was out of my paradigm, but I suspect not an unusual one world wide. One of the primary reasons why I agree that the ultimate Missionary Nove will never be written is that every mission is different, and the actions of every mission president will be filtered through as many points of view as there are missionaries. I gave a talk one time about my perception that Priesthood callings and "jerkhood" are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As examples I used (was it Elijah) the prophet in the old testiment who called bears out of the forest to eat the children who were teasing him about his bald head, Jonah and his mini rebellion, and a few personal examples like the Branch President (ME) who was insensitive enough in on comment to send his first counseler home from which he didn't come back to church until I was released. The point being that sometimes we have to accept jerkhood along with the priesthood. When the talk ended a sister came to me in tears. She had recently returned from a mission and was having trouble deciding whether to remain active. Her mission president had offended her so that she was interpreting the church by him. She said, "Brother Johnson, thank you. You have made me realize that just because a Priesthood leader is a Jerk, that doesn't make all priesthood leaders the same. I have been feeling so uncomfortable in church waiting for someone like you to attack me-- I didn't really realize that someone can have the priesthood, be fulfilling a calling the best way he knows how, and still be such a terrible, offensive person" Viewing her president through her filter, probably there are missionaries who were in her mission at the same time who felt that that mission president was wonderful-- a budding general authority. Richard B. Johnson - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 13:24:27 -0600 From: "ROY SCHMIDT" Subject: Re: [AML] Joel and Ethan COEN, _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ (Film) Hey Russ, Would you care for some gopher? This film is one of my all time favorites. I see it is out in DVD this week. Roy Schmidt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 18:10:25 -0600 From: Mike South Subject: Re: [AML] Value of Artists (comp) REWIGHT wrote: [snip] > > Imagine life without art. It would be sad. Dark. And unhappy. But we > could survive. > > Now imagine life without food. I once attended a showing of drawings created by people living in Hitler's concentration camps. Haunting images drawn with bits of charcoal on scraps of paper. Often created (according to the notes accompanying the drawings) at the risk of the artist's life. Discovery of these drawings meant death, and the artists knew it. There are those who need to tell their stories as surely as they need to eat. It is part of our survival as individuals. It is part of our survival as cultures. It is a primary, not secondary, part of our life experience. - --Mike South - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 18:25:30 -0400 From: Merlyn J Clarke Subject: Re: [AML] Missionary Stories At 01:56 PM 6/11/01 -0500, you wrote: >>From Jacob@proffitt.com Fri Jun 08 13:00:01 2001 > volved with you very much. Maybe it is different with the sisters. >Perhaps this is one reason why a woman might write a better story about >sister missionaries because it seems likely to me that a mission is a >different experience for the Sisters than for the Elders in ways that >aren't discussed very much. > >Jacob Proffitt ================================== There's an interesting example of this in the latest Dialogue...a missionary journal by Erika Knight. She writes, among other things, of run-ins with the mission president in Russia. It has been my very limited observation that as more and more mission presidents are drawn from local, non-US populations, the relationship between mission president and American elders is distinctly different. Merlyn - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 16:42:38 EDT From: Marcshaw1@aol.com Subject: [AML] LABUTE, _Shape of Things_=20 Here's a link or two to reviews/articles about Labute's newest play that=20 premiered at the Almeida in London at the end of May.=A0 Sounds like Labute= is=20 continuing with religious/Greek roots.=20 http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/06/10/sticulthr02004=20 Here are some other article/reviews on Labute's new play.=20 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4201351,00.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4196154,00.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4185756,00.html Marc Shaw - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 00:52:32 -0400 From: "Tom Johnson" Subject: Re: [AML] Missionary Stories Scott wrote: > > I think part of what concerns me is how many of those missionary > stories try to do exactly that--create a single, encompassing > viewpoint of *the* authentic, true, realistic missionary voice. I'm > not sure it's possible or desirable to try for that universality. > > I'm not sure there is *a* raging subtext for any missionary > story--sister, elder, or otherwise. Each person rages at their own > combination of subtexts, and those combinations are both infinite and > often exclusive. A friend of mine who'd served in Sweden (a female RM) said she saw _God's Army_ and "just didn't like it." I pressed her to give me an answer why, and ultimately she said that "it didn't reflect my mission at all." I then explained that it was a fallacy to insist that one person's experience stand for every person's experience, since every one is a different person, but she still shook her head and said, "Nope, still don't like it." At this point I was tearing out my hair and asked her exactly what her mission experience might be represented by, and she declined to tell me. I was really worked up now and went off on a big tirade about how Mormon art will never succeed if the audience always insists on universal truisms, but then my wife calmed me down and changed the subject. > > As I've been rereading Alan Mitchell's _Angel of the Danube_ so I > could respond to Tom Johnson (comments coming soon, Tom--probably > Monday), I think I finally put my finger on the thing that tends to > interfere with my enjoyment of missionary stories. It's that so many > of them attempt to interpret the entire missionary experience in a > single narrative. They tend to try to make sense of the whole broad > concept instead of staying with one character's experience, and the > stories of the people they work with end up being subsumed in the > search for an overall interpretation of the mission. Have you read Bela Petsco's _Nothing Very Important_? He seems to throw in little clips here and there of missionaries (Petsco is ostensibly the constantly recurring Elder Agryr). It's a nice change of pace, but the stories are a bit light; they are sketches, vignettes, and don't force me to think in ways I hadn't before. > Again, it's the iconic thing. I believe the authors presume a little too much. > > As much as I'm enjoying reading Danube again (it's really my first > careful reading; the first time I read the first fifty pages then > skimmed the rest), it's one of the two-and-two-halves things that I > keep flinching at as I read. > > ===== Large disclaimer/explanatory note: ===== > > I *like* Mitchell's book. I like it a lot, and feel that it may well > be the best modern missionary memoir novel I've read. I highly > recommend it to anyone who wants to read an engagingly told story of > one character's attempt to understand and interpret his own mission. > The story is loving, critical, powerful, and difficult. More > importantly, it reads as true to the author's own experience, and > that's what makes it such a good read. How can you say "it reads as true to the author's own experience"? Unless you know Mitchell on a personal level, I think you presume too much. Perhaps Mitchell's own experience was actually much different than Elder Monroe's. I actually hope that it was; otherwise, why bother calling it fiction? > > If I didn't like it as much as I do, I couldn't generate the energy > to comment on how I wish it had been better, or how it makes me wish > other stories could fill in other parts of the story that he > partially told so well. I will post a more complete review of the > book that explicates the two-and-two-halves things that jar me about > it as soon as I can figure out how to articulate those thoughts. > Unfortunately, the remainder of this post will end up offering the > half-hatched versions. > > ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ==== > > Any tale of this kind must necessarily be specific to one person's > experience. I also served a German-speaking mission (spent a year in > Berlin back when the wall was still up), so I appreciate his > observations on German culture and attitude a lot; they exactly > mirror my own experience. Wait a minute. Are you implying here that you "appreciate his observations" in the book because they mirror your "own experience"? Wouldn't you appreciate them more if they went *against* your experience? I served in South America, where baptisms are a dime a dozen, and so the frustration Monroe faced in Austria was something that went very much against my own experience--and precisely because of that I think the book intrigued me more. However, I get wary when I hear people comparing their own experiences in life to the books they read, as if art needed to mirror life in order to be art. Back to Plato we go. I had apes (Assistants to the President) > that I found overbearing and at least a little self-righteous. I once > knocked doors for eighty hours a week on three successive weeks > without teaching a single discussion, then was told by my district > leader that I was a failure as a missionary because of it. I got so > discouraged at one point that I walked away from one companion, and > stayed inside my apartment for several weeks with another while > reading about six years worth of Ensign magazines. I'm really sorry to hear about your six-years reading of Ensign mags. Had Mitchell written his book then, you could have simply picked it up and got a few good laughs out of it. And you could have penned him a really long letter. > Other than serving in northern Germany instead of Austria, I'm > probably about as close a match to the ideal audience for _Angel of > the Danube_ as exists in terms of my own missionary experience. > > And yet, it also described experiences and situations and cultural > assumptions that were quite different from my own. It offered some > scenes and situations that I have a hard time accepting, and drew > some conclusions that I just can't quite agree with. I feel like the > story is asking me to accept those conclusions as universal truisms, > not just the mind and experience of one missionary. Can you give me an example of a conclusion you believe Mitchell is forcing on you as a universal truism? If I remember correctly, didn't Monroe say that his mission was about human communication. Why do you feel that he's pushing that conclusion as a universal? > In trying to answer the question, "What did my mission mean?" I think > the story (somewhat necessarily) universalized the answer. And by > offering no convincing alternative viewpoints, it emphasized that > sense for me. Part of what unsettles me, I guess, is that the answer > Barry Monroe came up with is one I wish I had also come up with and > didn't. The honesty of the narrative made that answer very powerful. > So I guess part of what interferes with my acceptance of the novel is > its very success at providing a powerfully true viewpoint. Strange. I'm not quite sure I follow you. First you say Monroe's answer was expressed as a universal truism. Then you say it bothered you b/c it was a universal truism. Then you say that the truism actually proved true for you, and thus it bothered you that you didn't make the conclusion yourself. Huh? If the shoe fits, why is the customer unhappy? Is it because the customer is being forced to buy it, despite it fitting near perfectly? > I know, that's a feature of the memoir-style novel. In explicating > one character's viewpoint it attempts to illuminate many general > truisms. I suspect that Alan Mitchell never intended to claim this as > a universal experience, and yet I still came away from his novel > feeling that the text ended up making exactly that claim. I'm sorry to be so insistent here, like some kind of evil literature teacher, but "I still came away from his novel feeling . . ." is somewhat of a weak statement to make. Why did you feel that way, what factors produced the feeling? > I also accept that I may be the only one to come away from the novel > feeling that way. Individual reader response is exactly > that--individual. Individual responses vary, sure, but it's somewhat of a disclaimer to hide behind that argument in light of a better one. >My only real frustration with the novel was that > it's the same response I ended up having with every other missionary > story I can remember reading; a sense that there was just a lot more > story to be told to cover the issue effectively. Later in the post you express a desire for just one story to be told, but to be told at novel length. Is that what you mean here? > Benson Parkinson is trying to do exactly that with his multi-volume > novel. By following several distinctly different personalities > through their missions, Do you think these "distinctly different personalities" are a bit caricaturish, like with movies set in high schools--there is the nerd, the jock, the pretty girl, and the shy girl. he attempts to draw a larger picture that > encompasses even more of *the* authentic missionary experience. I > think he's doing that successfully, but I still wonder what the > attempt to interpret the whole missionary experience hopes to > accomplish. It still forces me to either agree, or to reject the > conclusions offered, and by extension, the novel itself. > > In the end I guess I want one of these novels to leave me with the > sense that this is at best one missionary's story, and that there are > an infinite number of other stories to be told that can intersect, > cross, and invert this particular story, yet still be just as true to > the POV's experience. I don't need to see those other experiences, > but I would like an acknowledgement that author and POV recognize > that valid spiritual response can and is often quite different. One technique that might be interesting is a kind of Henry Jamesian omniscient narrator, floating inside the different minds of the investigators and missionaries and church leaders and mission presidents. Then again, I hate those kinds of stories. How about telling the same story seven different times, each time going back over a different element in the narrative? Seems like a trick one might do just once, and then never again. > And that's what bugs me about most of the missionary memoir stories > I've read; they end up claiming more scope that I think is their > right. They take on too much of the missionary experience, and end up > reducing so much of it to pithy epigrams. But the pithy epigram of the _Danube_, according to your comments above, seemed to include you in its scope, and you admit that its scope applies to you. Again, I'm somewhat puzzled. Sometimes people object to a missionary story because it doesn't describe their mission (like my Sweden RM friend above), and others object to the missionary story that describes their mission accurately, (but tends to suggest that interpretation as a universal experience). Perhaps the problem is something else. An RM reader must react differently than a non-RM reader precisely because of the context of the personal missionary experience he or she is carting along to the page. Perhaps the RM reader is a little touchier reading about these things. The mission is a sacred experience for him or her. It's like when someone writes about you in their stories. My wife has done this on a couple of occassions, quoting me saying something, describing me a certain way. Immediately I think, but wait, that's not me, that's not the whole picture of me, you're making me look like a monster, or, you're making me sound so bland. Maybe the same reaction takes place with the RM reader--wait, that's not my mission, that's not the whole picture of what happened, you're making my elder days look monsterish, or, you're making me sound so bland. What do you think? > A perfectly valid and literarily defensible form capable of very > powerful and movingly true stories. But I'd still like to see > something a little more intimate, a little less vast in scope and > meaning. A novel-length work that focuses on one key experience in a > missionary's life with less of the iconic "this is what it's like to > be a missionary" feel. I think Judith Freeman's _The Chinchilla Farm_ would be one step in this direction. Have you read it? If not, I highly recommend it. For every step forward, she takes a step back into the past. It's really quite daring, since flashbacks are often detrimental to narratives. However, hers are not really *flashback* flashbacks, but rather little anecdotes from the past that, when put in context with the present events, make those present events more meaningful. Do you know of any novel (non-missionary) that accomplishes the sort of thing you desire? In my opinion it would end up being more of an essay, a kind of long and rambling reflective monologue. > > Again, just one reader's response. I liked _Angel of the Danube_ as > much as I've liked any missionary memoir story I've read. It's a book > that I feel is both good and true (about the highest compliment I can > offer other than "I hate you; I wish I'd written that!"). It may well > be as good a book as can be written in that form. I know that the moderator said we shouldn't go through line by line in a refutation style way, but I've done this several times on the lds-philosopher listserv, and found it quite fun (though I always get crushed). Your saying "It's a book that I feel is both good and true . . ." seems to me a very problematic statement. I often hear the trio (very Trinity like) of the "good, true, and beautiful," but these are quite empty words to describe a text. What is good? Good is . . . that which makes us most happy? Besides the fact that different things make different people happy, or that different people find happiness in different ways, thus eliminating the possibility of a universal good (you don't like universals anyway), however good is defined, one can always step back and ask, "But is that good?" See Moore's "naturalistic fallacy" ("G. E. Moore (Principia Ethica (1903)) argued that no matter what definition of 'good' is proposed (e.g. as what satisfies desire, maximizes happiness, or furthers evolution), it can always be asked, 'But is that good?' The question always remains open, and never becomes trivial. 'Good' resists definition or analysis: and the attempt to pin it down to an invariable, specific content is, in Moore's phrase, the 'naturalistic fallacy'." www.xrefer.com). The same can be done with beauty or truth, I think. > > Now I'd like to see some different forms with different narrative goals. Write them, Scott. Tom [Johnson] - - 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 #355 ******************************