From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #896 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 Monday, November 18 2002 Volume 01 : Number 896 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 14:05:41 -0700 From: "Morgan Adair" Subject: [AML] Re: Reading Copies >>> barbara@techvoice.com 11/12/02 07:48PM >>> > >People are not supposed to sell their advanced reading copies! That's = why=20 >it says "Not for resale" right on the cover. Someone is breaking faith = with=20 >the publisher and with the writer. Don't buy it. The "not for resale" is there to prevent bookstores or dealers from = selling the advanced reading copy as if it were a published copy of the = book. ARCs are frequently printed before the final copy edit, and are = almost never printed or bound as well as the published book. Someone who = bought an ARC thinking it was the published book would probably feel = cheated, and it would reflect badly on the publisher to have poorly bound = and edited copies of their book in circulation. Many book collectors are = interested in ARCs as an early (sometimes first) "state" of the published = work. ARCs may also have marginal notes from reviewers or editors. ARCs = become the property of whoever the publisher chooses to give them to, and = the owners can sell them if they want. Because few ARCs are printed, they = frequently become more valuable than the book's first printing. About a = year ago, Signature Books had a book signing scheduled for the publication = of Michael Quinn's biography of J. Reuben Clark, but the book didn't come = back from the printer in time. So Signature printed ARCs of selected = chapters from the book and had Quinn sign and number them as a collectible = for people who attended. I have two (my wife came with me to the signing), = and will probably sell one someday. MBA - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 18:04:08 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Re: Buying _Brigham City_ Video (comp 1) [MOD: This is a compilation post.] >From mjjones@xelent.com Thu Nov 14 23:16:26 2002 The Brigham City VHS is available online at www.clicktobuyonline.com. If = you still can't get it there, let me know.... Mary Jane Jones - --------------------------------------------- >From Jhotodd@aol.com Fri Nov 15 09:05:32 2002 We just purchased Brigham City in VHS at the "This is the Place" bookstore near the Washington DC Temple. JH Todd - --------------------------------------------- >From RichardDutcher@aol.com Fri Nov 15 10:55:20 2002 In a message dated 11/14/02 8:57:06 PM Mountain Standard Time, margaret_young@byu.edu writes: << I tried YET AGAIN to purchase _Brigham City_ in VHS form. Unsuccessful. It was only available in DVD. Richard, where is it available? >> You can buy VHS copies of "BRIGHAM CITY" at virtually any LDS bookstore. Retail, on line, whatever. But you won't be able to find it outside the LDS market for a few more months. Or...you could come by my office and I'll trade you one "Brigham City" for an autographed copy of your most recent (or favorite) book. Now there's a win-win situation. Richard - ----------------------------------------------- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 18:03:59 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] re: New DB Policy [MOD: This is a compilation post.] [MOD: The first item here is a note that Andrew attached to a version of the Deseret News article that he forwarded to AML-List. I had already posted another version of that article to the list, however (forwarded by Chris Bigelow). So here's Andrew's note, sans the article to which it was originally attached.] >From andrewrhall@hotmail.com Thu Nov 14 17:53:29 2002 This clerifies the situation some, but I am still very concerned. Will books with any adultry, even when portrayed as a tragedy, be banned? Anna Karenina? The Scarlet Letter? I bet they are setting a tighter standard for Mormon authors, I think Desret Book knows Mormon readers are often more uncomfortable reading about sin if the author or charachters are Mormon (if it is anyone else, fine). So if a reader wants to buy any fiction that tackles difficult issues at Deseret Book, they should stay away from the Mormon fiction section. How very sad. Andrew Hall - --------------------------------------- [MOD: I'm taking it on myself to add this post to this thread, rather than keeping it as a response to Margaret's comments on the BYU Professor Problems thread. Hope Dorothy doesn't mind...] >From dorothy@lds-index.org Fri Nov 15 09:25:40 2002 Margaret Young wrote: > Do you list members think > we're getting better at developing fiction/plays/films which reflect the > depth of faith Mormonism requires, or is the fact that we're producing > so many "easy" movies (etc.) where sentimentality is substituted for > earned emotion an indication that we're somehow failing to TRULY prepare > our people for the requirements of this time? Margaret's comments are in response to an experience as a BYU professor. I have a different one that relates to the same issue. A representative from one of the smaller Mormon publishers called me yesterday regarding my novel, which I submitted to them a year ago. Ironically they logged it in on Sept. 11, 2001. They have just gotten it back from one of their readers with a good review and wanted me to do some rewriting and resubmit it. As it happens I am under contract with an agent representing that novel and can't do that for the time being. In the course of our conversation I asked the rep if she had read the novel and if she knew that its heroine commits adultery. She said she did not know that and that it would definitely be an issue. According to her, Deseret Book, who everyone knows has a monopoly on LDS book sales at least everywhere in the world except Utah and maybe Utah too, is not becoming more liberal in their acceptance of the kind of Mormon literature Margaret describes above, but on the contrary is tightening their standards. The rep thus agreed that they probably would refuse to sell the book in their stores. The point here is that the theme of the novel is faith, repentance, and forgiveness, not adultery. The adultery is merely the "inciting incident" as Marilyn Brown would describe it (I enjoyed Marilyn's discussion group at the recent AML conference, by the way). How can you have a story about faith, repentance, and forgiveness if there is nothing to repent over or forgive, and nothing that requires faith? The use of sin to evoke gospel thought on faith and repentance, the primary issues missionaries are sent out to teach, is an appropriate example of what Margaret refers to as "earned emotion." There's a wonderful essay in Eugene England's collection of essays titled TENDING THE GARDEN (I can't find my copy at the moment and therefore can't give the author credit for which I apologize) in which the author uses Flaubert's MADAME BOVARY as a model describing how we as mortals can avoid making mistakes by experiencing the mistakes of others through literature. He makes the point that we were designed by our Father to learn through experience, and that literature helps us capitalize on that God given propensity without having to experience the sin ourselves. It is hard to understand why Deseret Book and others in Mormon Letters who have the power to make a difference do not understand that. Dorothy W. Peterson http://www.lds-index.org dorothy@lds-index.org - ------------------------------------------- >From pdhunter@wt.net Fri Nov 15 10:37:51 2002 Evans' publicists are probably doing cartwheels right about now. His book was always intended for a national market, not the Deseret Book market, and now he is being cast as a serious author, with a new serious, banned (i.e., literary) book, in newspapers and other media sources all over the world. We should all be so lucky. This is mostly a win-win situation. Evans' book gets some fantastic publicity. Deseret Book's decision is the right thing, and serves its customers. The only down side I see is that Deseret Book will look, to some people, a bit silly. But I can totally see how the decision not to carry Evans' book is a business one, and I'm glad the Deseret Book president stated it's not a moral decision at all. - - Preston Hunter - -------------------------------------------------- >From ThomDuncan@prodigy.net Fri Nov 15 11:06:07 2002 > Though the process has just begun, store employees will >eventually comb through all 250,000 titles in the stores' >inventory to remove other books that might flunk the new >standards, Dew said. Classics such as The Scarlet Letter or >Jane Eyre will get the same scrutiny as new books under consideration. Henceforth, I will be shopping at Seagull Books. Thom Duncan - ----------------------------------- >From ameliaparkin@hotmail.com Fri Nov 15 11:39:49 2002 >From the _Tribune_ article about _The Last Promise_ and Deseret Book: "Though the process has just begun, store employees will eventually comb through all 250,000 titles in the stores' inventory to remove other books that might flunk the new standards, Dew said. Classics such as The Scarlet Letter or Jane Eyre will get the same scrutiny as new books under consideration. The guidelines are based on recent customer surveys that said patrons, mostly members of the LDS Church, were upset when they found books at the store whose messages clashed with their values." What a sad commentary on the stores' "patrons, mostly members of the LDS Church." How pathetic that they cannot even tolerate the *presence* of books that may challenge or clash with their values. The store management does not force a patron to purchase, or even to look at, a book that they *may* disagree with morally or ethically (the emphasis on may because I highly doubt that most of the patrons who object to such materials have even bothered to read them thoroughly enough to even know if they are truly objectionable). This is the attitude of a child, an inexperienced human being who recognizes the appearance of something wrong but cannot necessarily differentiate between a work that is morally unsound and a work that uses moral questions in order to provoke thought and consideration, a person who cannot accept the realities and difficulties of the world but would rather live in a bubble of alleged perfection. Consider what will happen at Deseret. Consider every piece of fiction you have ever read. _Madame Bovary_ which is very much about adultery but which is also a beautiful love story. [spoin alert: if you haven't read _Madame Bovary_, skip the next two sentence.] At the end of the novel, just before she dies, Madame Bovary realizes how very much her husband loves her. And he realizes how much he loves her. The scene moved me in ways few other scenes in books have. _The Scarlet Letter_, mentioned in the article, which deals with adultery and self-punishment but also with repentance, charity, and forgiveness. Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories which frequently deal with issues of faith and doubt. How about Shakespeare? (By the way, isn't he the one we're supposed to emulate? at least that's implied in the statement that someday we'll have a Mormon Shakespeare.) Hardy, Dickens, Eliot, the Brontes (all three), Ford, Joyce, Woolf, Dickinson, Whitman, Christina Rossetti, Wilde, Lawrence, Faulkner, Fitzgerald. I think I could find something "objectionable" on either moral or doctrinal grounds in every piece of literature I have ever read in my entire life. What does that leave for Deseret's patrons, typically Latter-day Saints? That leaves works by other Latter-day Saints, for the most part. Not even all of those. Most of them would be blatantly Mormon. Most of Orson Scott Card's works, for instance, could be dismissed as "morally offensive". How much more isolated do we have to become before we will collapse on ourselves from the sheer weight of our own ignorance? Of course there is plenty of room for all of the authors I listed above to remain at Deseret. There's lots of room for a double standard. I have two words for this. one is ignorant. the other is pathetic. Amelia Parkin - ------------------------------------------ >From wwbrown@burgoyne.com Fri Nov 15 12:34:00 2002 WELL! YOU KNOW WHAT? Evans' book probably belongs in that fourth category of Eric Samuelsen's wonderful PECULIARITIES drama. I LOVED that he wrote that play and that we saw it at the VILLA! In a little discussion with Eric and I can't remember who else, we all agreed afterwards that "emotional adultery" is by far the most frightening and subtle of the "sins." And you know what, Eric? I for one am SO GLAD you exist and that you have the foresight to see this! Because IT IS ONE OF THE WORST KILLERS in today's LOOSE world. You know what? It takes GUTS to get and STAY married, and to make it WORK. THAT is what somebody needs to write about. I haven't read Evans' book, but I am impressed that DES book would take such a step. And when they didn't like my "page" in OQUIRRHS I changed it. I KNOW that literature wants to be REALISTIC, and there is certainly a lot of pressure from this list to allow it. But when Brigham Young talked about "theatre" (entertainment, or literature), his stance on it was that we present evil as evil. The LOVE that is shared in "emotional adultery" is really not love. Marilyn Brown - -------------------------------------------- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 21:57:49 -0700 From: "Kelly Thompson" Subject: [AML] Re: Polygamy (was: Jana Riess) [MOD: As I think I commented earlier, I realy don't want us to get into a thread on polygamy per se, particularly not at this current high-volume time. However, I'm not willing quite yet to cut off this discussion. I reserve that as an option, however, if the discussion continues in a purely doctrinal/historical, as opposed to literary, direction.] This thread about polygamy interests me. I'd like to share a few thoughts= . A good friend of my family and a professor at BYU (in the International= Relations department), Valerie Hudson Cassler (a brilliant woman), and h= er associate Don Alma Sorensen co-authored a book titled Women in Eternit= y, Women in Zion (I may have mixed up those two lines). Their work beauti= fully outlines how women are equal with men is God's eyes. (The only way = that I know that this book is available is from the authors). They do so = using the scriptures and boy, do they ever. =20 One of the fascinating things about this publication is that it has a bea= utiful chapter on polygamy. Cassler and Sorensen say that there is a reas= on why section 132 of the D&C juxtaposes Abraham and his trials with that= of the introduction of polygamy. They are trials of sacrifice. There are= frequently situations where the exception to the rule is required when i= t is for the greater good. One example is the Savior's sacrifice. As we k= now, of all people, He did not deserve to die. But, for the greater good = He submitted to the Father's will. Cassler and Sorensen put forth that wh= ile monogamy is the rule, polygamy is the exception when God commands it.= And yes, there is great sacrifice involved. This sacrifice is for the gr= eater good of God's purposes. However, the Lord is very mindful of the so= rrow, suffering, and sacrifice made by those who enter into polygamous si= tuations. Cassler and Sorensen suggest that there is a ram in the thicket= for those who are unhappy in such situations. I find much comfort in their presentation of polygamy. Kelly - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #896 ******************************