From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #443 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 Wednesday, September 5 2001 Volume 01 : Number 443 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:47:04 -0600 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] Polygamy - ---Original Message From: Cathy Wilson > Ah alas, my cranky subject. I think rather MY response to > polygamy (and probably many women feel the same) has to do > with one's sense of self as a woman and wife. I can't > remember the name of the story by an actual plural wife, > married, I think, to Smoot (_A Mormon Mother_?) who describes > her husband taking a plural wife not long after her own > marriage: "I wonder wherein I lacked that so quickly he > sought another."). People who are married know that to grow > in a marriage, people need absolute trust, confidence and > giving up of one's sins and faults. Polygamy inherently > creates distance and diminishing intimacy, by its very > nature. As in _The Giant Joshua_, if the husband is not > happy with one wife's responses and behavior, why, he can > just go spend some time with another. Okay, I'll bite. I think that we have a responsibility to deal with Polygamy in our art, particularly when writing stories about our pioneer heritage. It is a difficult task because distance hasn't given us much of a break from the damage caused by the government persecution over it. I think it is hard, but important to give it the careful thought it deserves from a faithful standpoint. It can be very awkward even looking like you defend polygamy, particularly if you're a man because the unspoken assumption is that behind your kind depiction is a desire to participate. It is important that we form positions and thoughts on the matter that are prompted by faith in the gospel and the belief that polygamy was a valid revelation to Joseph Smith (whether or not we make it explicit that our faith also includes the divinity of the revelation to discontinue it). As a revelation from God, it had to have had *some* good points about it, some benefits for those who practiced the principle. And I don't just mean the "building up of the kingdom" or even that polygamous women tended to live much longer in the frontier environment. I think it is possible to do this based on what we know about strong, faithful marriage and extrapolating those principles to polygamy. Since marriage is eternal and those marriages were sealed for all eternity, I have to assume that there are things about polygamy that can be for the personal benefit of both the men and women involved in it. There is no doubt that polygamy was abused by some. Just as people can abuse a modern marriage, they had that same freedom then. To me, since marriage is about bringing two people together so that they can build a family in love and security, it follows that a polygamous marriage that doesn't do the same is missing the point. If there is no unity in the family, if the husband is choosing who he spends time with based on who will give him what he wants (as opposed to what the family needs), then there are some serious flaws in his marriage. If women found themselves neglected under polygamy, then I am left to assume that there is some problem with their marriage that needs some work. Polygamous families need to work together, know and love each other, serve each other and talk about their challenges to work them out together. They need to be able to act in concert, supporting each other in their challenges and helping each other be strong and grow. With love as its basis and the helping hand of God, I think polygamy could provide a great home to both the men *and* women involved in it. Please note that each of those statements apply just as well if you substitute "modern family" for "polygamous family". It might be trickier in the practice, but the principles involved are the same and provide the same support, joy, and love that they do today. I think you could do some interesting things that underscore the universality of strong marriage principles by showing how they function in a situation that is strange enough to modern conventions to provoke new thoughts about the matter. One of the reasons I *hated* _The Giant Joshua_ is that the depiction of polygamy is so one sided. The husband was a pig and he abused his relationship with his wives. He offended me deeply as a man and I wanted to throw the book against the wall in hopes he'd feel my disapproval. If you have three wives who can't even talk to each other civilly, then you are doing something very, very wrong (and bringing in a *fourth* without even talking to all the current three is just evil). As a contrast, I'll bring up Orson Scott Card's _Saints_ again but this time as an example of the best depiction I've ever read of what polygamy could have been like when done right (it's been too long since I read the book, I'm pretty sure it was Dinah's brother--was his name Charles?). I particularly liked that the wives could talk to each other and didn't have to go through the husband like spokes on a rimless wheel--isolated from each other. They worked together, they loved each other, they dealt with their jealousies and worked it all out so that they could make a family--even trying to help the one who couldn't handle it and provide for her when she left them. The tricky bit about understanding or depicting polygamy is not just that we have modern sensibilities (hippies, free love, adultery, and shame all mixed into a very confusing gumbo). We find it tempting to try to understand previous polygamy by studying people who have the fullness of the gospel available to them who choose to practice modern polygamy. I think such a course would do more harm than good, though, because any modern "Fundamentalist" is practicing polygamy directly contrary to God. A "Fundamentalist" man who participates in polygamy does so *against* God--increasing the likelihood of selfish, sexual motivation. These polygamous marriages therefore provide us a view as from a cracked mirror--a view that is inherently invalid in our attempts to understand our past. In our art, we need to be able to draw clear distinctions between polygamy practiced as a part of God's law and polygamy practiced directly contrary to it. I think it would be more informative to view the polygamy of Muslim nations than of "Mormon Fundamentalists", although other cultural issues would then stand in our way. Muslim polygamy is at least not a direct violation of knowledge of the fully revealed Gospel. Unfortunately, many Muslims who practice polygamy do so as a part of a framework that is disparaging of women as a rule and that weakens their example, too. Polygamy shouldn't be a part of some greater framework that denigrates women unless we truly believe that women are inferior (or that God believes that women are inferior). Which further makes it important to make sure that we *don't* make polygamy a part of a system that relegates women to an inferior role--at least, we shouldn't consider any such framework to be a valid one endorsed by God. Frankly, it's this tendency to see polygamy as a degradation of the female condition that colors so much of our work about polygamy (and highly influences _The Giant Joshua_ in my opinion). Polygamy *doesn't* inherently degrade women when practiced as God's law. We also have to overcome a natural reflex to shy away from a principle that is, for us personally, forbidden. I would caution, however, against the popular response by modern LDS members who say "I could *never* do that". I understand the impulse--nobody wants to be suspected of being willing to cheat on their spouse. But saying you could never do that is saying that you could never obey God--a stance I personally warn against. Holding so tightly to a personal ideal can result in the loss of the very thing we are trying to hold dear. Jacob Proffitt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 09:50:21 -0600 From: margaret young Subject: [AML] Re: Polygamy The ONLY way I can stomach polygamy is by reminding myself that the Church needed to bond in significant and maybe unusual ways in order to accomplish what it did. Polygamy certainly bonded families (and at first bonded the saints into one massive, sealed family). But I struggled mightily reading the offcial History of the Church (not even an anti-Mormon one) with the constant reminder of the importance of secrecy and the denial of anything like "spiritual wifery." Modern Religion professors describe "spiritual wifery" as much different than plural marriage, but it's clear to me that they're two branches of the same tree--or maybe the same branch in a two different seasons. My own writing (yes, I'll tie this into Mormon literature) has dealt with polygamy on several occasions (_Salvador_, _Heresies of Nature_ [soon to be released], and even _One More River to Cross_. _Bound for Canaan_ will also deal with it. Polygamy is an issue for a lot of us Mormon women, who simply find it very hard to accept, and who find the traditional explanations inadequate. That it was an Abrahamic sacrifice is clear. But the quote Cathy Wilson gave from Brigham Young about older men finding vigor by courting a sixteen-year-old woman is pretty scary, don't you think? Just who is getting sacrificed in that scenario? [Margaret Young] - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:33:13 -0600 From: Scott and Marny Parkin Subject: Re: [AML] Have You Been Published This Year? I've had a number of people asking about deadlines for the AML awards. The awards are for calendar year 2001 (except in the children's, YA, and poetry categories), so the deadline would be December 31. But if you have copies now, send them now. If not, send them as soon as you have them. I'm excited to see the awards expand to encompass more and more titles every year. Scott Parkin AML Awards Coordinator 475 East 560 South Santaquin, Utah 84655 - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 13:20:00 -0400 From: "Debra L. Brown" Subject: [AML] Fw: MN Mormon Actor Helps Lampoon Utah LDS Culture in "Saturday's Voyeur": Salt Lake Tribune Mormon Actor Helps Lampoon Utah LDS Culture in "Saturday's Voyeur" ROY, UTAH -- The Salt Lake Acting Company's annual lampoon of all things Utah, including the local LDS culture and influence in the state, has again graced the stage, but this year, in an usual move, the play includes an active LDS actor. Rock H. White is described in a Salt Lake Tribune profile this week as a "New Mormon," an active church member who is liberal, open minded, and who didn't attend BYU. White lives in Roy Utah, where he is an active member of the Roy Eighth ward, where he is music coordinator and teaches in the Elder's Quorum. He is also a returned missionary, a drama teacher, and a performing arts graduate of Weber State University who has appeared in local musicals such as the Utah Memorial Theatre's production of "Oklahoma" and Sundance Theatre's "The Music Man." But while White says he is devoted to the Church, he says he is also embarrassed by the behavior of some Church members, "In [Saturday's Voyeur] they pinpoint those people that I, as a missionary, would cringe about," White says. "They make fun of people that use sacred things to impress people or to try to control, instead of letting people choose the right on their own. There have been a few bishops in my life growing up in the church who made stupid mistakes that affected my family. I know they are human, but some of the things they do are embarrassing, or strange. It's easy for me to re-create on those people." White says he hasn't received any negative feedback from his ward or from his bishop, but he says that some of his relatives are shocked that he is in a show that "mocks our people and our church." Saturday's Voyeur is a long-running annual production of the Salt Lake Acting Company, which has used the show, almost always sold-out for its several month-long run, as a fund raiser for the group. The name of the show is itself a take-off on the name of the popular, but critically-panned LDS musical "Saturday's Warrior," and LDS themes have always been a part of the show. This year's show, written by Allen Nevins and Nancy Borgenicht, pokes fun at Utah's pornography czar, Paula Houston, as well as the often-fuzzy line between church and state. It includes references to LDS cultural emblems like Jell-o, wedding receptions in LDS basketball courts and the recent controversy over the sale of a block-long section of main street in Salt Lake City to the LDS Church. White plays a self-righteous LDS Bishop and representative who is a pornography crusader. However, the character is less-than-saintly, lying and using coercion to get his objectives. While White says he's not comfortable with everything in the play, he says its important for Mormons to take a different look at themselves, "There are a couple of lines in the show that I still cringe at every night. The show doesn't squash any sacred cows, but there are brief moments where they push the line pretty far for comedy's sake. But I do feel that a show like this is great for both members of the LDS church and non-members to see if you are willing to laugh at yourself. It's a healthy bit of medicine for LDS people to see what we look like to other citizens of this state." Source: Mormon Actor Finds Utah's World a Fitting Stage for Satire Salt Lake Tribune 1Sep01 A2 http://www.sltrib.com/09012001/saturday/127776.htm By Celia Baker: Salt Lake Tribune >From Mormon-News: Mormon News and Events Forwarding is permitted as long as this footer is included Mormon News items may not be posted to the World Wide Web sites without permission. Please link to our pages instead. For more information see http://www.MormonsToday.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 16:41:56 EDT From: OmahaMom@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] Polygamy Several years ago, I met an elderly woman who had been a child in a polygamous family. From her descriptions, it sounded much like many marriages. For some it worked, for some it didn't. In her family, there were very warm feelings towards their "aunt" who lived next door. A biography of an early LDS woman physician made it clear that she was able to go east & study medicene because of polygamy. The sister wife/wives were able to take care of the husband, home, & other children while she was away at school. (And 100+ years ago, demands on a family were much greater than they are with our modern electrical and other conveniences. It often took two adult people to run a household and a division of labor was necessary. Some things were given to women, some to men. Sometimes there was an overlap. But you did what you had to do to sustain life.) I'm glad we're not called upon to live polygamy. But I would think that for it to work well, a woman would have to truly love her sister enough that she would be willing to share her husband, rather than have her sister be lonely for eternity. Does this then imply that more of the sisters are going to make it into the celestial kingdom, that women (some) will have to share their men? How about those whose families had more than one wife, but not simultaneously? Assuming everyone makes it--it would become a polygamous situation in the hereafter, because yes, I'm making sure that all of them are sealed to my various gggrandfather's. There are lots of possibilities here. Given some thought, some creativity, possibly some prayer--surely some interesting reading could come from it. Karen Tippets - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:31:44 -0400 From: "Debra L. Brown" Subject: [AML] Fw: MN Master Photographer Don Busath Takes on Temple Square: Deseret Book Press Release 3Sep01 US UT SLC A2 Master Photographer Don Busath Takes on Temple Square SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- There is no more recognizable landmark in Utah than that of the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now the temple and its lovely gardens and surroundings is captured in a beautiful collection of full-color images in "Temple Square: In The Light of Its Seasons" (Eagle Gate, $21.95), by award-winning photographer Don Busath. This breathtaking new book depicts in exquisite photography every season of the year. From the beauty and grandeur of springtime flowers on the temple grounds through the magical fairyland atmosphere created by Christmas lights each December, "Temple Square" is a stunning visual tour of Utah's largest tourist attraction. Also featured amidst the book's more than 100 images are the Tabernacle, Assembly Hall, the Conference Center, the Main Street Plaza, the Family History Library, the Museum of Church History and Art, the Church Office Building, the Church Administration Building, the Relief Society Building, the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, the Lion House, and the Beehive House. Master photographer Busath has been a professional photographer in Utah for more than 50 years, and is one of only six photographers in the world to hold fellowships from both the American Society of Photographers and the British Institute of Photography. He has created a keepsake in "Temple Square" that promises to be a must-read for collectors of coffee table books worldwide. Source: Master Photographer Don Busath Takes on Temple Square Deseret Book Press Release 3Sep01 US UT SLC A2 >From Mormon-News: Mormon News and Events Forwarding is permitted as long as this footer is included Mormon News items may not be posted to the World Wide Web sites without permission. Please link to our pages instead. For more information see http://www.MormonsToday.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 17:31:59 EDT From: BISH8@aol.com Subject: [AML] Xlibris (was: B. Weston ROOK, _The Junction_ Review) Jeff asked about the publisher of The Junction by B. Weston Rook. X-libras does e-publishing and 'print on demand' type books and falls into the catagory considered to be a 'vanity press' as they do not pay an advance and charge the author a publishing fee. I have heard success stories from these types of publishers, but the horror stories far outweigh the good. This is not to cast specific dirision on X-libras, who appear to be honorable in what they do, but it is still a case of author beware. Onward! Paul Bishop - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 11:38:24 -0600 From: Terry L Jeffress Subject: [AML] AML-List Review Archives Update For some reason, we did not receive very many reviews during August. At the current rate, we will not meet the challenge goal of 100 reviews for the year 2001. (We would miss by three reviews.) If you read a book related to Mormon Literature, please post a review -- even if someone else has already reviewed the title. We all benefit from multiple opinions. New reviews in the archive: 474 The Junction by B. Weston Rook reviewed by Steffany Name (31 August 2001) 473 The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd reviewed by Christopher Bigelow (27 August 2001) 472 Out Of Palmyra: A Convert Looks at the Prophetic Calling of Joseph Smith by George W. Givens reviewed by Jeff Needle (23 August 2001) 471 Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card reviewed by Steffany Name (10 August 2001) 470 The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd reviewed by Jerry Tyner (1 August 2001) Revised reviews: 468 The River Path by Jennie Hansen reviewed by Jeff Needle (26 July 2001) AML-List Review Archive Statistics ================================== Build date: Wednesday, 4 September 2001, 11:07:48 Total reviews: 474 Total reviews this year: 65 Most Prolific Reviewers - ---------------------------------------------------- Needle, Jeff 64 (13.5%) Clark, Harlow S. 29 ( 6.1%) Rasband, R. W. 28 ( 5.9%) Martindale, D. Michael 25 ( 5.3%) Parker, Katie 17 ( 3.6%) Hall, Andrew R 16 ( 3.4%) Parkinson, Benson 11 ( 2.3%) Most Reviewed Authors - ---------------------------------------------------- Card, Orson Scott 32 ( 6.8%) Young, Margaret Blair 11 ( 2.3%) Dutcher, Richard 9 ( 1.9%) Parkinson, Benson Y. 9 ( 1.9%) Hughes, Dean 8 ( 1.7%) Lund, Gerald N. 8 ( 1.7%) Most Reviewed Titles - ---------------------------------------------------- Brigham City 7 ( 1.5%) Latter-day Daughters 7 ( 1.5%) MTC, The: Set Apart 7 ( 1.5%) Children of the Promise 6 ( 1.3%) Work and the Glory, The 6 ( 1.3%) Testaments, The 6 ( 1.3%) Most Reviewed Publishers - ---------------------------------------------------- Deseret Book 101 (21.3%) Signature Books 51 (10.8%) Bookcraft 42 ( 8.9%) Covenant Communications 30 ( 6.3%) Aspen Books 22 ( 4.6%) Tor 15 ( 3.2%) Shadow Mountain 15 ( 3.2%) [Ok, I finally wrote a script to calculate statistics, so now I will include this as a regular feature of the archive update announcements. If you would like to see any particular statistics not included here, just let me know and I'll try to calculate them for you.] - -- Terry L Jeffress | A creative writer must study carefully | the works of his rivals, including the | Almighty. -- Vladimir Nabokov - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:44:35 -0600 From: Scott and Marny Parkin Subject: [AML] What We've Read (was: LDS Booksellers Convention) Ronn Blankenship wrote: >And I've also read the entire "Divine Comedy," though admittedly in >an English translation. I've tried. I really have. But even with a good running start I get bogged down half-way through the _Paradiso._ Some day I will force my way through, but right now it's just crushingly uninteresting to me (like the doctrinaire portions of _Paradise Lost_). I've read the _Inferno_ and _Purgatorio_ several times each, but for me the the _Paradiso_ is absolutely impenetrable. (I recommend the John Ciardi translations, btw; does anyone else have a preference? Jonathan?) [MOD: Nope--I haven't, I'm ashamed to say, done enough with Dante to have a preference for translations. Someday it's my ambition to read through it in the original, with a facing-page translation to help out as I go along...] I read _Moby Dick_ in a couple of days, and the unabridged _Les Miserable_ in a week. I love Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad, and have even read several James Joyce titles. So far the only books that have completely defeated me are _Paradiso_ and Thomas Mann's _The Magic Mountain._ The Russian writers are difficult, but I can force my way through. The Greek writers are positively riveting by comparison, IMO. Scott Parkin - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 14:37:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Ed Snow Subject: Re: [AML] Sam TAYLOR, John Taylor Bio (was: Joseph Smith Story) Eric, thanks for thinking out loud about _The Last Pioneer: John Taylor, A Mormon Prophet_ and reminding me again of that great read. I first read it in law school in the Macmillian edition published as _The Kingdom of God or Nothing: John Taylor, Militant Mormon_ (note the Signature Books cover "fabric softening"). It's one of my favorite Mormon books, next to Fawn Brodie's _No Man Knows My History_ and Wallace Stegner's book about the pioneer trek, _The Gathering of Zion_. I like these books for their wonderful prose style, not because they are the necessarily accurate historically speaking. It is a shame, however, that Taylor didn't document everything he tells in someway, but then as Pres. Taylor's grandson I believe many stories he told were family memories. It would have been nice to see footnotes that said "I heard these stories as a little kid." Stories like Pres. Taylor pinching from sugar bowls incessantly as he walked around the living room, or his working in the backyard without a shirt on, barechested, or family home evenings when Pres. Taylor let the grandkids feel the Carthage Jail bullet still lodged in his knee. My favorite story is the time Pres. Taylor, on the "Dodge" from the Fed "Skunks" during a house raid, jumped out of bed in his underwear to hide in a wardrobe, with just enough time to grab a revolver to protect himself. He wasn't going to go down like Joseph did. He was hiding there, in his underwear, while holding the revolver as a federal deputy searched the room to arrest him for cohabitation. Then the deputy yanked open the doors of the wardrobe, parted the hanging clothes and he and Pres. Taylor were face to face with drawn guns. The deputy then yelled down the stairwell to the other deputies rumaging through the house: "There ain't anyone up here worth shootin'." The deputy, an undercover "agent", then reached out his hand to shake Pres. Taylor's hand and said "Good to see you Pres. Taylor." If that wasn't a true story, it should have been. Ed Snow ===== 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 email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:35:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Darlene Young Subject: Re: [AML] Polygamy I'm going to sound like an absolute lunatic here, but I have to say this about polygamy: One day I was describing to a dear female friend of mine the guy I was currently dating (whom, I thought at the time, was Practically Perfect in Every Way). As I described this guy to my friend, I saw envy on her face. She was very lonely at the time and wanted to be involved with someone decent. (I'm sure we all know single, good women who have the same longings.) For just a flash of a second, I was overcome with love for her and wanted her to know the joy I was feeling in my relationship--wanted it so badly that I felt I would be willing to share this guy with her. Besides that, think of this: women need other women in their lives, much more than men need other men. Now, I'm nowhere near righteous enough to have that kind of love for another woman long-term enough to share my husband. But I got a little glimpse that it just might be possible for SOME people to do it SOMETIME in the eternal scheme of things. Don't call me an advocate of polygamy--I'm just not as positive as I used to be that it is automatically the "fate worse than death" that I used to think of it as. I hope to someday write a story about this experience of mine, but I'm not sure how, since I don't want to be advocating it. (But here I'm worrying too much about what the audience thinks of me and not enough about just being true to the story.) ===== Darlene Young __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 17:05:32 -0600 From: "Ethan Skarstedt" Subject: RE: [AML] An Iconography of Our Own I am reminded of one of the many John Bytheway 'for the youth' inspirational tape sets I once saw in Deseret Book. (this was a few years ago so I can't be counted on to remember the title) It was on the topic of choosing good friends and had two pictures of the same girl on the cover. In one she was wearing a pink sweater with a white shirt underneath buttoned all the way to the neck, had a pink hair thing holding her hair back and was holding school books. In the other, the hair thing was black, she had a dark colored jacket on and was holding a purse. Perceived message? Judge others by their outward appearance. Apparently this girl was either an acceptable friend or not according to how she dressed. I didn't listen to the tape so I can't comment on Bro. Bytheway's real message but if it was anything like the cover implied... ouch. Yes, I realize that I am judging the tape set by its outward appearance, feel free to point it out, I will be glad to argue the difference in the two cases. Ethan Skarstedt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 17:38:41 -0600 From: Chris Grant Subject: Re: [AML] Eugene England/Joseph Smith Story Jonathan Langford writes: [...] >However, if anyone were to attempt to "tell the story" of >Eugene England, particularly in a dramatic or novelistic >setting as opposed to a biographical one (keeping in mind >that the original comment from Eric Samuelsen was about >*dramatizing* the life of Joseph Smith), then of course it >would have to include a depiction of Eugene England that >showed some of his flaws (or the artist's conception of what >those flaws were). I don't see why this would have to be true as a matter of course. >Anything less would (in my view) be poor storytelling, Perhaps the problem boils down to an irreconcilable difference in our tastes, and harks back to our disagreement in the thread on "Good" Mormons, in which you said that you could think of no fictional character who was both good and interesting. As the long list of counterexamples I posted suggests, I can think of several that, in my opinion, fit both descriptions. [...] >Chris's comment about _A Man for All Seasons_ raises another >issue. I called the play quasi-hagiographic earlier, because >it does little to develop the internal character of More or >tell us anything we don't already know about who he was and >what happened to him. Bolton (the author, if I recall >correctly) can get away with that because for most of his >audience, he's the only source of knowledge about More's life. The author was Robert Bolt. I would agree that Bolt didn't show us many of More's flaws, but I would disagree with the assertion that Bolt didn't develop More's internal character; in fact, I think he did little else. I don't understand who the "we" is who weren't told anything by Bolt about More that they didn't know already. They're surely not the same as those for whom Bolt was the only source of knowledge about More; everything he told them about More was something they didn't already know. D. Michael Martindale writes: [...] >The purpose of a eulogy is to comfort, to remember the positive >experiences one had with a person--to talk about the good >stuff. The purpose of a character study is to try to understand >as much of the character in question as possible. These are two >different animals with two very different purposes. Whence this >dichotomy that if one is truth-telling, the other must be lie- >telling? I don't remember saying anything about lie-telling. I believe that someone can simultaneously be a truthteller and focus on good things, and I'm happy if you agree with that. [...] >Haven't read the Stephens story, so I don't know what you're >getting at there. It's in _Same-Sex Dynamics Among 19th Century Americans: A Mormon Example_. See, also, the rebuttal in _FARMS: Review of Books_ 10:1 by Stephens' relative George Mitton. If Mitton is correct, Stephens could empathize with Jerry Seinfeld's lament: "I've been outed and I wasn't even in!" [...] >I didn't call the eulogy category absolutely awful. What >would be absolutely awful is using a eulogy approach to write >a character study. Okay, but returning to my question: Would you say that _Shadowlands_ and _A Man for all Seasons_ use the eulogy approach? If not, what are some specific ways in which they deviate from that approach? [...] >We're still waiting for your definition of a story told with >discretion. So far, I can't tell that you mean anything >different than whitewashing. When I used the word "discretion", I intended to use it the same way Church leaders did when they used the word to denote a virtue. I've already given an example of a story I thought was told with discretion: The Eugene England story as told on AML-List last week. Unless that story is a whitewashing, using discretion is not synonymous with whitewashing. Chris Grant grant@math.byu.edu - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 18:09:24 -0600 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Polygamy At 04:41 PM 9/4/01 -0400, you wrote: >I'm glad we're not called upon to live polygamy. But I would think that for >it to work well, a woman would have to truly love her sister enough that she >would be willing to share her husband, rather than have her sister be lonely >for eternity. Does this then imply that more of the sisters are going to >make it into the celestial kingdom, that women (some) will have to share >their men? How about those whose families had more than one wife, but not >simultaneously? I've been trying to write an SF story about the restoration of polygamy, and it's much harder going than I had supposed. I personally don't see husband-sharing as a valid reward to the women for more of them being righteous, but I find that my attitudes of the world affect what I'm trying to do. For example, I can't see myself whining to another woman that she has to share her man so I don't have to be alone. I'd rather be alone, thank you, than have part of a man. I can't see any woman of our culture being willing to share a husband she loves, physically, emotionally, or any other way. I think that if polygamy were to be declared constitutional these days, it would have to be true polygamy, not just plural wives, and the men wouldn't like that above half. If such a system became widespread, chaos would result. Robert Heinlein created a polygamous society in one of his books--I think it was in The Moon Is Harsh Mistress--and if a woman married into such a clan, she married all the men, not just the one she wanted, and had to spend her wedding night with the oldest one. Ewwww! I could tell that a man wrote that one! I do kind of like the theory that because of higher infant mortality among male babies and the great number of men killed in war (did you know that Napoleon lost almost half a million men just in his expedition to Moscow?), that there will actually be more men available than women on the other side--what does that do to the "harems in heaven" theory? I tried to write the story in the same way I've written other speculative fiction: I set up the premise--that fifty years or so into the future, the Supreme Court reverses the decision making polygamy unconstitutional, and because of PC-ness, says it has to work both ways--then created a set of characters representing different viewpoints to see how they would react: a married woman who deeply loves her husband, her husband who loves her, a single woman who wants a man, any man, and rejoices that husbands are now available to her, a single woman who wants nothing to do with any man, a philandering male who thinks that he now has an excuse for unlimited sexual indulgence--you get the picture. Then I set them in motion on the day the decision is announced on the news and watched them to see what would happen. It all went along okay through an interesting series of scenes: people who had felt left out rejoicing, people worried about other people moving in on their love territory, people concerned about the impact on society, reporters interviewing people about their reactions. When I got to the reporters, I realized that they would want to swarm around the First Presidency to ask them for comments, and I had no idea what to have them say. That's where I got seriously stuck! My premise had involved restoring the legality of the practice without reference to any spiritual context. But I don't think I could write such a story with the assumption that plural wives could ever work as a religious practice now. I'm not convinced it ever was. Because my attitudes on the subject permeated my prose, I found that I wasn't writing the objective, truth-seeking bit of fiction I had hoped for. Someday I may find a way to write such a story without riding a hobbyhorse. Or maybe someone else here could do it much better. I still like the idea, but because I was hoping to find out what my own feelings were in the course of writing the story, I didn't know where it should end up--and so far, it hasn't ended up anywhere! And I too wonder what to do about people who were married more than once. My mom loved my dad, and after his death, she married Bud. Dad had been married before and lost his first wife, and Bud and been married before and lost his first wife. When I try to talk to Mom about the Church, she tasks me about this. Am I telling her that Dad and Bud could have both their wives, but she has to choose one? How fair is that? I don't think it is, but I don't know how it will turn out. I hate it that you can't talk about the Church to some people because all they want to talk about it polygamy. I'd be interested in any input from writers on this list about the feasibility of writing a "faithful" story about a restoration of polygamy. Probably several of you had great ideas if you read through my description of my pathetic-so-far attempt. Barbara R. Hume barbara@techvoice.com (801) 765-4900 - - 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 #443 ******************************