From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #4 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, April 2 2003 Volume 02 : Number 004 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 01:57:06 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] DAVIS, "The Other Side of Heaven" (Deseret News) Deseret News Friday, March 28, 2003 'Other Side of Heaven' themes receive Disney label validation By Chris Hicks Deseret News feature editor Mitch Davis doesn't really think of "The Other Side of Heaven" as a "Mormon movie," and he hopes the rest of the world will feel the same way. It's a film with universal themes, Davis says - themes that reach out to a wider audience. The characters in the film just happen to be Mormons. That would also seem to be the feeling of Walt Disney Home Entertainment, which is distributing "Heaven" on DVD and videotape next Tuesday, April 1. And that's no April Fool's joke. "It will be in every Wal-Mart and Blockbuster and Hollywood Video (across the country)," Davis said during an interview from Southern California on his cell phone. What's more, it's going out under the "Walt Disney" label! "Outside of the movie business, people may not realize what that means," Davis said, referring to how the company is extremely protective of the Disney name, and often releases its many video titles under other labels, such as Buena Vista Home Entertainment. "The folks in the home-video department said, 'This is pretty amazing.' They were shocked and pleasantly surprised." It's quite a validation for the writer-director, who put his heart and soul into the movie, which relates the LDS missionary experiences in Tonga of young John H. Groberg (now a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). And he isn't finished yet. As the film makes its home-video debut next week, Davis is preparing to take "Heaven" out to the rest of the world =97 a job that will keep him occupied for another six months to a year. "I've had a lot to do with marketing and distribution. The movie did really well at AFM (the American Film Market, where distributors gather to purchase independent movies for release all over the world). "We're taking it worldwide theatrically and on video and on TV," Davis said. "I've been especially surprised at the number of Muslim countries that have bought the movie." Excel Entertainment's list of countries - so far - that have purchased "Heaven" for theatrical, video, television or other viewing rights, numbers 73, and includes Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Iran, Iraq and many others. In May, Davis will take "Heaven" to the Cannes Film Market, at the Cannes Film Festival, which should cause that list to swell. Meanwhile, he's also developing his next film at Disney, though his "Heaven" labors will keep him from taking it into production for awhile. Davis also did an audio commentary for the "Other Side of Heaven" DVD, which, to his surprise, turned into a rather spiritual experience. "When I went into the booth, they just showed the movie and said, 'Talk,' and every time I started, I couldn't help but recall the personal, spiritual experiences that helped make the movie. I tried to shy away from that, but when I was done, I realized I'd been bearing my testimony on the audio commentary that Disney was now going to release. "The interesting thing was, five co-producers and engineers all said thank you. It was clear that they'd been moved by some of the things I had discussed. I mention that because I think a lot of people are looking for inspiration, for a reaffirmation of their faith. And Disney is putting out the movie, and it has this audio commentary that says there is a God, and he loves us, and he answers prayers. That's pretty amazing." Davis also feels strongly that there is a large contingent of potential moviegoers in the world hungering for such movies. "Mormons in Utah are not the only people who really, really wish there were more well-crafted family-friendly movies out there. And, surprisingly, there are a lot of people in Hollywood who wish there were more." He also has what he describes as a "pet peeve" about the way the LDS audience looks at movies with LDS themes. "The hardest group to convince that this is not a Mormon movie is the Mormons themselves. For us to think that only Mormons can understand our movies is like saying only Mormons can understand the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. "We've got to make movies that reach or surpass the standards of the world stage, and we've got to have the guts to pay the price to be on that stage. We should make no apologies for what we are and who we are and how we behave. If we sit on the sidelines and allow others to define who and what we are, we shouldn't be surprised when caricatures of ourselves permeate the media." 2003 Deseret News Publishing Company _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* =20 http://join.msn.com/?page=3Dfeatures/virus - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 08:08:55 -0700 From: "Scott Parkin" Subject: Re: [AML] AML-List Moderator Practices Robert Slaven wrote: > But I do think our democracies would be a lot better off if > people would actually *think* about political issues, rather than *feel* > about them, IYKWIM. Nothing frustrates me more (as a citizen and as a > politician) than someone whose basis for political argument is raw emotion, > especially when he/she has his/her facts wrong. But that's the way the > world turns, and we can't avoid it here or anywhere. Given that all literature is political, I would argue that you can also say that all politics is emotional, and I question whether it's possible to discuss politics dispassionately. The emotional response is part of the political response and has to be taken into account and dealt with. "The facts" are as subject to interpretation as anything else; it's common practice to ignore the facts that don't bolster one's own argument--resulting in either intellectual dishonesty or emotional sifting of opposing facts as unreliable. I would argue that the basis for decision-making may be (essentially) intellectural, but the basis for action is almost always emotional. We act when the moment "feels" right, and hopefully our acts are informed by our careful thought and study. But I don't think you can separate emotion from politics any more than you can separate politics from literature--or any other communication intended for an audience other than oneself. Scott Parkin - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 10:13:06 -0800 From: "Travis K. Manning" Subject: [AML] Yale Conference on Mormonism For an amazing article on the recent Mormon studies conference at Yale, follow the link below to Meridian Magazine's online article! Travis Manning ************************************ Meeting of the Minds: Groundbreaking Gathering of Scholars on Mormonism at Yale This past weekend, the stage of religious history and philosophical scholarship was visited in the form of an unprecedented conference at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut entitled “God, Humanity, and Revelation: Perspectives from Mormon Philosophy and History.” By Mark Martin Link below: http://65.54.244.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=351d947c34541561c1113a2b569 a5532&lat=1049133963&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eldsmag%2ecom%2fchurchupd ate%2f030331yale%2ehtml - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 11:15:32 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] Conservative Literary Theory? I'm very interested in this question of conservative literary theory, = though I've felt constrained from joining this thread because, well, I'm = not a conservative. Here's where I see conservative literary theory right = now, though I think it's not what you're thinking of; it's actually more a = fundamentalist literary theory. It's a theory based on the notion that = there exits an absolute one-on-one correlation between what one reads (or = reads) and what one does. I think of William Bennett, for example, and = the Book of Virtues. The theory there seems to be that there exist = certain canonized texts, 'classics,' which are called classics because = they clearly and unmistakably set our for us certain absolute moral = principles. Read the text, apply its moral to your life, and you're a = better person, and we're a better society. And most contemporary = literature doesn't have that, so it's best dismissed as exemplifying = 'moral relativism.' =20 Okay, I'm setting up Bennett as a straw man, and attacking his book (which = I've not read all the way through, though I have started reading it a = couple of times) and conservative theory along with it, and that's not a = nice thing to do. But guys like Michael Medved are just that boneheaded, = and when he comes to speak at BYU, he's SRO in our biggest house.=20 Now, let me also acknowledge of course that there's a lot of boneheaded = Marxist, Marxist feminist, radical feminist, radical lesbian feminist, = post-colonialist, Marxist post-colonialist and radical lesbian Marxist = post-colonialist feminist criticism floating around the academy these = days. I yield to no one in my admiration for the infinite ability of = academics to write idiotically. But that criticism, a lot of the bad = stuff, comes out of the same place that Bennett seems to me to be coming = from. I see it all the time in professonal organizations I belong to: = papers that point out that David Mamet is clearly a sexist pig, because he = doesn't write very interesting female characters anyway, and besides he = wrote Oleanna, a play in which a professor gets fired because of a false = accusation by a feminist student, so he's a bad guy, so we can't let our = students read him or they're going to catch that oh-so-virulent sexist pig = virus. I'm not kidding; I've heard papers that bad. But the point is, = they're coming from the same critical stance really that Bennett is, at = least in my probably reductive and simplistic opinion.=20 Point in part is, for a lotta folks, when you write 'conservative literary = theory' they read 'reactionary fundamentalist literary theory.' I mean, = conservatism is in part cultural, a reaction against certain presumably = retrograde cultural trends that can easily (and not always inaccurately) = be demonized as 'anti-family.' We see it a lot in film criticism, or = television criticism. In Mormon cultural circles, there's a lot of = anti-TV rhetoric and a lot of anti-Hollywood rhetoric; it even surfaced = here, on the List, when we got into the R-rated movie thread (which = believe me I don't want restarted). Like it or not, that rhetoric is = usually labeled 'conservative.' Bill Bennett is usually labeled a = 'conservative cultural critic.' =20 If y'all don't want to go there, and I sense you don't, you need to = clarify that position. There are actual ideas behind the ideology which = we call political conservatism. Those ideas could well provide the = philosophical basis for literary criticism. So who are you citing? = 'Liberal' criticism, I gather, is the stuff derived from Derrida and = Foucault and Althuzzer and them thar guys. Real philosophers, whose ideas = have very broad implications and applications, which is why post-modern = and post-structuralist ideas permeate every part of the academy. So who = are your guys? Camille Paglia, maybe? She's a self-declared pagan and = lesbian, but she loathes Foucault and is not an uninteresting thinker. = Levinas? But be careful there, we lefties have already claimed him. =20 Interesting project, though. Keep us posted. Eric Samuelsen =20 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 23:58:14 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Re: Sugar Beet Readership (Comp 1) [MOD: This is a compilation post.] >From BJ@bjrowley.com Fri Mar 28 18:26:33 2003 Christopher Bigelow wrote: > Does anyone know any explanations for this? Are there >really that many people interested in Mormon satire in Virginia, or is there >some other reason why the statistics would skew that way? > > Might have something to do with that quasi-LDS college over there. Maybe the students have discovered and shared in big numbers or something. - -BJ Rowley - ---------------------------------- >From lajackson@juno.com Fri Mar 28 22:07:13 2003 aol.com probably equals Virginia. Did your report include domain names? If I were to hit the Beet from work, for example, the report say I came from one of four different states, depending on which of the four gateways my server at work chose as being less busy at the time. And if I were to hit it from home, the domain would be NetZero. I don't even know which state they call home, but it is a national service, as well. But what it really means is that you never know who your readers are, or where they come from, or who is going to like what you wrote, or whether or not the literary tie-in on an AML post will truly be meaningful. Ah, the joys of authorship. Larry Jackson lajackson@juno.com - -------------------------------------------- >From katie@aros.net Fri Mar 28 23:38:24 2003 There's that little private LDS college (not Church-owned) out that way. Is that in Virginia? Maybe they had to read it for class or something... I'm with you. Those numbers are pretty surprising. - --Katie Parker - -------------------------------------- >From kcmadsen@utah-inter.net Sat Mar 29 19:29:29 2003 I'm going from pure memory here, which as we all know is highly unreliable after 40...but isn't there some sort of BYUwannabe little college out there in Virginia? A private college with LDS values? My kids got literature from it when they graduated from high school...but maybe it's not Virginia at all. If 'twere true, you might find The Sugar Beet is creating a cult at a small LDS institution of higher learning. One possiblity. Kim Madsen - ------------------------------------- >From tmanning.eagle@sisna.com Sat Mar 29 22:09:53 2003 Is there a contingent of Mormon satire lovers at the up-and-coming Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista, Virginia? Perhaps they're skewing the numbers. You might consider approaching some university presses that also publish literary mags as a possible publisher, be they in Utah or no. There are hundreds of university presses. Travis Manning - ------------------------------- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 12:52:42 -0600 From: "Lisa Tait" Subject: Re: [AML] BofM in Mormon Lit For once I'm not entirely sure what Eric's getting at here (more my fault than his I'm sure) but here's two cents' worth on the subject line. The urge to write fiction based on the Book of Mormon goes all the way back to the original home literature of the 1880s and 1890s. Off the top of my head I can tell you about two serialized novels in the youth periodicals that were based on the Book of Mormon. In fact, they were both based on the same story from the BofM: Corianton--the guy who was supposed to be a missionary but went after a harlot. Even more interesting, one of those stories is by no less a figure than B.H. Roberts himself. Most people don't know that he was one of the early voices in favor of developing "home literature" at a time when there was still much hysterical suspicion of any kind of fiction within Mormondom. Roberts' story attempts a high-minded literary tone and focuses on the tragic aspects of the story. It's definitely "masculine" in tone and theme. The other novel appeared in the Young Woman's Journal, penned by some anonymous author (not Susa Young Gates for once) under a pseudonym. It's definitely feminine. It goes on for several installments through all the melodrama and passion of which any self-respecting 19th century woman writer was capable. The main character is a woman. She's in love with Corianton. When he goes off, she marries another, faithful guy out of duty. But then he dies and Corianton comes back and repents and they end up together. So, in Mormon terms, she's sealed to the "good" guy for all eternity, but she gets to sleep with the "exciting" guy for this life. Not bad. And totally without any basis in the original text (as was Roberts' story, to be fair). Anyway, I thought it was interesting that Corianton would be the story they chose to write about, with its sensational possibilities. It makes perfect sense, though, when you consider that during this period they were extremely concerned about the lack of worthy young men for the women to marry and the perception that too many were marrying outside the faith. The general consensus was that the youth were all going to the dogs and now that polygamy was no longer an option, the righteous young women were going to have to resign themselves to lives of spinsterhood. All of which has little to do with Eric's post, but does point up the fact that the Book of Mormon provides a wealth of material that can be adapted to whatever cultural concerns are current. How do you think the Corianton story would look if one of us novelized it today? What are some other BofM stories that might lend themselves to fictional treatment? Lisa Tait - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 11:55:56 -0700 (MST) From: Fred C Pinnegar Subject: Re: [AML] Conservative Literary Theory? Jacob Profitt said: "I think it might be harder to do conservative literary theory because conservative theory doesn't fracture or focus very well." My Response: Not as hard as you would think. Politically based literary criticism mostly involves selecting texts for analysis which reflect one's ideological perspective or analyzing a text to reveal the ideological undercurrents of it. Obviously, in this regard, some texts are going to be more fruitful to analyze than others. For example, Gilman's Yellow Wallpaper and Chopin's Awakening lend themselves nicely to Feminist interpretations, but not much else. As my wife says, the secret to looking good in a hat is never put on a hat you don't look good in. The so-called classics of literature, on the other hand, are open to a large variety of interpretive trajectories. For example, when I teach critical theory I sometimes use just one primary text, usually something like WS's King Lear or Hamlet, and approach it from a dozen different directions. Conservative literary criticism would come under the rubric of moral and philosophical criticism. To be sure, as Jacob pointed out, there is a lot more Liberal and Leftist criticism around than Conservative, but only because the profession (of teaching and analyzing literature) is infested with Leftist and Liberals. Now you would think that this would not be so in the LDS community, which is generally percieved as being dominated by a conservative political ideology, but unfortunately the literary enterprise is a beach where many LDS Liberals and Leftists wash ashore, having been shipwrecked elsewhere. Jacob asid that Conservative theory "doesn't fracture or focus very well." Actually, it does, and those lines are mostly religious, since traditional religion is generally a conservative political force. This is why you can talk about an LDS, Catholic, Protestatnt, and Jewish critical perspective. The central question asked by the reader or critic is "What does this text say to the LDS reader?" "What religious or social values does it reinforce or challenge?" Finally, concerning Marxist criticism, we should be aware that it is interested in looking at economic and social issues on the theoretical lines suggested by Karl Marx, and in this regard it is not the same things as advocating the political movement which has come to be known historically as communism. Therefore, we can have BYU professors lioke Dan Muhlestein and Mike Austin who do Marxist criticism with no sense of ideological disjunct. Fred Pinnegar GE and Honors, BYU - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 14:15:52 -0800 From: "Susan Malmrose" Subject: Re: [AML] Artists' Personal Lives << redemption and humor, all together, all there. I think we can glory in art, and also quite properly denounce dreadful behaviors practiced by artists. See The Pianist, for example, and revel in its complexity and beauty. And also not want to give Roman Polanski an Oscar for it. Which the Academy did, the same year they also gave one to Michael Moore, all the time recoiling from his utterly predictable--for him--Oscar speech. Eric Samuelsen >> Why give not him an Oscar, then, if it's such a great film? (I haven't seen it, I'm taking your word for it. :) Susan M - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 12:16:35 -0700 From: Gideon Burton Subject: [AML] Call for Papers - Mormon Lit in the 21st century Mormon Literature in the 21st century will be discussed at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association's annual conference to be held at Missoula, Montana on Oct 9-11, 2003, in a session sponsored by the Association for Mormon Letters.=20 Mormon literature is a thriving ethnic literature both within and beyond = the Mountain West, and we invite perspectives on the growth and significance = of this literature in its various genres. Papers addressing specific works, genres or authors, including films and filmmakers, are all invited, as = are papers dealing with the cultural contexts for producing or interpreting imaginative writing by Mormons or about Mormon experience.=20 Please submit a proposal for a speech of 20 minutes length to the = session chair, Gideon Burton, by April 15th. Presenters must become members of = RMMLA in order to be on the program. For details about RMMLA and the = conference, visit http://rmmla.wsu.edu/conferences/. Gideon O. Burton, President The Association for Mormon Letters 3113 JKHB Department of English Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 (801) 422-3525 Visit The Mormon Literature Database http://MormonLit.lib.byu.edu - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 18:54:17 -0800 From: "BJ Rowley" Subject: Re: [AML] Elizabeth Smart > > >>PS-Is there any LDS fiction that deals with rape in our culture? >> One of Anita Stansfield's books deals with date rape at BYU. I thought it was very well written. (can't remember the title) After reading these posts, I can't help but wonder if it's one of the ones that DB banned, or if it's still on the shelf. Anybody know? - -BJ Rowley - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 22:34:51 -0500 From: Justin Halverson Subject: Re: [AML] Conservative Literary Theory? At 05:54 PM 3/28/2003 -0800, you wrote: >--- Eric Russell wrote: > > I think there's a lot more out there. Anyone else have any ideas towards > > a > > conservative literary theory? I don't know exactly how this would be classified, but in the dissertation I'm gearing up to write I'm going to try to make a case for a "return with difference" to a more conservative (read: less deconstructionist, less ironic) mode of reading and writing literature, especially in (Caribbean and Latino) border cultures of the Americas. A return, in that I want to reassert the humanity in literature (against, say, the move toward the cyber/post-human in the most extreme branches of cultural studies) but with a difference (ie, not just a resurrection of New Criticism or religious essentialism). I'm still just working out the broad strokes of what this might look like (read: I don't quite have a thesis yet), but my aim (though I'm rather surprised to admit it) would be considered conservative, I'd think. Any thoughts? :) Justin Halverson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 21:56:05 -0700 From: "Nan McCulloch" Subject: [AML] _Stones_ at Center Street Theatre Please do whatever it takes to see The Nauvoo Theatrical Society's = presentation of Scott Bronson's play _Stones_at Center Street Theatre at = 50 W. Center Street in Orem. I saw the play in Springville at the = Little Brown Theatre and was moved by the splendid performance of the = three actors--Elwon Bakly, J. Scott Bronson and Kathryn Laycock Little. = I was doubly moved with the performance at Center Street Theatre, = because the set was stunning. The set, lighting and music created the = perfect mood for this beautifully written and performed play. _Stones_ = consists of two one-act plays performed in repertory. The first play, = _Altars_ is based on the story of Abraham and Isaac and their journey to = the top of Mt. Moriah. The second play, _Tombs_ inquires into the = relationship between Jesus and his mother, Mary. I can't begin to tell = you what a meaningful theater experience you will have if you make the = effort to see this play. Explore the precious gift of motherhood, = fatherhood and childhood. You will approach your Easter celebration = this year with much more appreciation and insight than ever before. The = play is universal and has a message for everyman. Scott Bronson, = missionary man, has reached a pinnacle of perfection with this piece = that few of us will equal. Would that we all could leave this earth = with a legacy so profound. The play runs through April 26. Call (801) 225-3800 for tickets. Nan McCulloch Draper, UT - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 05:55:31 -0500 From: "Kent S. Larsen II" Subject: Re: [AML] Sugar Beet Readership I believe the explanation is AOL, which has its network hq in Northern Virginia. This puts all AOL users there artificially. Many Internet service providers have at least some kind of connection there. No. VA is the location of MAE East, one of the major Internet hubs. I'm afraid what you're seeing is artificial. Its simply very difficult to place actual geographic locations with users. Kent - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 22:20:43 -0800 From: "Jongiorgi Enos" Subject: Re: [AML] Validity of Memory and Nonfiction Travis K. Manning said: "There is an unwritten contract that exists between writers and readers of literary nonfiction (I am distinguishing literary nonfictive genres like memoir and personal essay, from 'straight' nonfiction like autobiography and most journalism). This unwritten contract requires the writer of literary NF to be as exacting and detailed as is possible." I believe the exact opposite to be true. Travis' comments are correct, but completly reversed, so I have probably misunderstood him, and I suspect it is I that got confused. But to make sure, I'll restate it how I see it, and we'll see if there is agreement or not. It is Journalism and Autobiography which are the more exacting and detailed sub-genres and which include the "unwritten contract" mentioned above. This is most obviously so in the case of journalism. Conversely, in that genre that is most often called "literary" non-fiction, the specific use of the qualifying adjective "LITERARY" immediately suggests to readers that a writer may be using more lee-way in his descrition of facts, hence "literary", in other words "literary license." It has never been socially understood that the personal essay is more exacting in truthful content than the journalism article; it has never been socially understood that the so-called "memoir" is more exacting in detail than the so-called "autobiorgraphy. In fact, the exact opposite is true. This is not to suggest that literary non-fiction should not strive for an application of verity. It just suggests that the understood social contracts for the mediums are reversed. Journalism, scientific texts, scholarly non-fiction, biography, etc., are the most precicely accurate sub-genres of the form. So-called "literary non-fiction", belletristic memoirs, personal essays (more often than not statements of opinions having little or no nessessary connection to verifiable facts) are the least precicely accurate sub-genres of the form: hence thier being called "literary". Manning then goes on to describe "A few basic rules." I won't re-quote them, but all of his rules are perfectly applicable to "straight non-fiction," especially history, biography, scholarly essay, journalism. However, the rules he describes would be, if liberally applied, the absolute death-knell to any more "literary" or belletristic non-fiction. Anyone who has read a great deal of the more literary sub-genre will see that authors of the same almost never indulge in the more journalistically required "rules" that Manning suggests. Manning states: "As the writer of literary NF, you want > the reader to trust that what you are saying is, in fact, true. So don't > violate that writer-reader obligation to be truthful." I am prabably quibbling over semantics here, but this, again, is a description (using his own definitions) of "straight" or journalistic non-fiction, not "literary" non-fiction. In belletristic or "literary" non-fiction, the goal is not to present facts that the reader trusts are true. The goal is to create a sense of realism and a literary equivalency of recognition in the reader, to move the reader emotionally though the power of the literary art in exactly the same way that fiction can, but to do so using non-fiction events or personal history as the launching board. This is why the sub-genre must be called "literary non-fiction," because it is so much more like literature than journalism. Nobody expects a memoir ("Angela's Ashes" for example) to be as precicely truthful in its recollections as, say, Time Magazine. But then again, nobody is as moved by a journalistic news weekly as they are by the literary non-fiction of Frank McCourt. And this is not to say that Frank is lying or making things up. But thank goodness he does not go around citing his sources, qualifying whether conversations were recorded or transcribed from memory, or checking his dates and facts! It would kill the narrative flow and turn the work into a scholarly autobiography instead of a literary memoir. Both forms are laudible, but they have completly different goals. Manning's "rules," as stated, would disallow a McCourt-like memoir, which I don't think he wants to do. Memoirs are written like novels, not biographies. They do not follow any journalistic rules and there is no "unwritten contract" that they be more truthful "at all costs". The reason that this is so is that the "cost" of such "truthfulness" would be a loss of literary power, narrative flow and emotional effect, destroying the very raison d'etre of "literary non-fiction," and none of the most successful authors of the genre are willing to pay that price. If truth must suffer to establish greater literary power or effect, then it does, and I can think of about a dozen writers of "literary non-fiction" who do it time and time again (the two published McCourt brothers, Bryson, Dillard, Mailer, to name a few modern ones, and Montaigne, Rousseau, Thoreau, Hemingway and Mark Twain, to name a few classic ones.) Once again: this is not to say that literary non-fiction is not FACT-BASED. It is. And I am not disagreeing that it should be. Quite the contrary, it is factual (that's why it is called nonfiction). When we cross a certain line, it becomes autobiographical fiction. When literary non-fiction stops being fact-based altogether, or even when it substantially fictionalizes or imagines large or important sections within the fact-based telling, it shifts gears into a different genre: the non-fiction novel (Mailer, Capote, Talese, I think, are famous examples of this). But there are two different kinds of "truthfullness" at work. The journalist is more skewed to an interest in "factual truth," while the creative non-fiction writer is more skewed towards an interest in "human truth." Carolyn Forche and Philip Gerard, two teachers and writers in the genre edited an excellent compilation addressing the form in 2001 called: "Writing Creative Nonfiction". In their introductory essay on the subject, entitled "Creative Nonfiction: An Adventure in Lyric, Fact, and Story" they make some intersting points, which I quote below: "Crative nonfiction has emerged in the last few years as the province of factual prose that is also literary -- infused with the stylistic devices, tropes, and rhetorical flourishes of the best fiction and the most lyrical of narrative poetry. It is fact-based writing that remains compelling, undiminished by the passage of time, that has at heart an interest in enduring human values: foremost to accuracy, to truthfullness. "Its very literariness distinguishes this writing from deadline reportage, daily journalism, academic criticism, and critical biography. It is storytelling of a very high order -- thorugh the revelation of character and the suspense of plot, the subtle braiding of themes, rhythms and resonance, memory and imaginative research, precise and original language, and a narrative stance that is intelligent, humble, questioning, distinctive, individual and implicitly alert to the world." I can't think of a better definition than that! But the "truthfullness" in this definition is explained as the most "human" kind of truthfulness, often not pressent in mear reportage. One of the interesting aspects of this genre, which Theric Jepson and I have been exploring privatly in our own works (and In an exchange of e-mails) is the concept of "the self as a character." In the book I quote from above, essayist Phillip Lopate addresses this very thing in an essay entitled "Writing Personal Essays: On the Necessity of Turning Oneself Into a Character". My contention is that an element of fiction enters into the work inherently at this point, and that this fictional aspect is OKAY, in fact, essential. It is an expected convention of the genre. Hence my philisophical differences with the "rules" proposed by Manning. They miss an essential and facinating aspect of this genre's true power, not its distance from fictional writing, but how CLOSE TO FICTIONAL WRITING IT REALLY COMES -- WHILE REMAINING FACTUAL. The more I work in the genre, the more interested I am, critically, in the emphasized sentence above, discovering where those subtle boundries intersect and overlap. And I believe that serious readers of the genre must also be aware of that dangerous, but exciting, duality. In both fiction and nonfiction the key to generating literary excitiment is the concept of "dramatizing" the story. In ficition, we "dramatize" by making stuff up, or at least making them a lot more exciting than they might be if told in a different fashion. In literary non-fiction, however, the act of dramatization does not mean to blatantly fictionalize (tell lies), but it does mean that we must selectively represent the truth in such as way as to hone in on or extract from the real story the most dramatic elements, and shape them in such a way as to derive from them a power not nessessaily inherent in the event itself. Sunset on red rocks, for example, may not be particularly enlightening. But when Terry Tempest Williams is done with it, you've gone on a journey! My point is that this sunset may not have been the world's greatest sunset at all. But it is the writer's infusion of artistic elements, the use of the focusing power of the writer's art to pull from even the most mudane, elements of the sublime, that we achieve a sense of FACTUAL FICTIONALIZATION. We do not cross the line and invent a second sun rising on a different planet (fiction). We are feet firmly planted on earth and stick with one simple sunset (fact). But the creative element, the literary element, extrudes from this sunset every ounce of its power. And in that exercise and achievement, readers are simply not even remotly interested in factual truth; they are absolutely interested in human truth. Did the writer get it RIGHT? Do we RECOGNIZE it? And that is why the list of journalistic rules do not apply, in a broad sense, to this genre. In my opinion. Jongiorgi Enos P.S. As a side-note, so that Travis knows my differing opinions are semantic and not personal, I should like to point out that (while it didn't enter into my comments regarding his argument) I completely agree with his theory that there was probably an officially signed document at King Benjamin's people's conversion and covenant and that all the people signed onto, agreed and therefore "said" the same thing or were "one" in thought. I think Travis is right on with that supposition. That is a very perceptive intuition, well thought-out and exciting to contemplate. Bravo. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 06:59:24 -0700 From: "Paris Anderson" Subject: [AML] Covers Jamie Lualusa wrote: . I do not yet have a copy with a pretty cover, but if anyone=20 wants to remedy that situation... Send it to me and I'll put a nice cover on it. No charge. I use = Japanese sewn bind on paperbacks I want to preserve. It keeps the paper = cover from getting folded or torn and the spine remains visible. Paris Anderson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 09:31:10 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Physics and AML-List Clark Goble wrote: > > ___ Johngiorgi ___ > | ...the restored gospel uses culture [19th Century American > | Puritanical Conservatism] derived from apostate theology > | as the basis for its own culture? > ___ > > Well, as *elements* of its culture. But of course one could say the > same about any period of the gospel. How much was the culture of Jesus > influenced by the fact they were occupied by Rome and had been highly > Hellenized? Don't we acknowledge that this had an effect on the content > and rhetoric of the scriptures? Didn't the same thing happen to > Abraham? To Moses? To Isaiah? Is it pure coincidence that many Psalms > appear to have been borrowed/modified from Babylonian hymns? Much the > same way many of our own hymnals have songs from Protestantism? > > This really isn't that surprising. No, it's not surprising, but I don't think Jon was complaining that there are external cultural influences on LDS culture. I think he was complaining that Mormons don't differentiate between cultural influence and official doctrine. Which is also my complaint. For example, here's what many Saints would say if they found out their elders quorum instructor had gone skinnydipping at a nearby hot spring. "That's evil--he shouldn't have done that." Instead of saying: "The aversion to nudity is a cultural influence based on an apostate belief. I was raised to be uncomfortable with nudity, so I don't want to do it, but if my elders quorum instructor indulged in a little innocent, nonsexual skinnydipping, what's that to me?" - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #4 ****************************