From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #210 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, October 29 2003 Volume 02 : Number 210 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:32:30 -0700 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] Marilyn Brown Novel Award Thanks Darvell for asking, "When is the next Marilyn Brown Novel Award= going to be presented?" We will present a thousand dollars to the next Marilyn Brown Novel Award winner on February 23, 2004, or whenever the AML luncheon meeting is held. We have more manuscripts than ever before, and the ANONYMOUS judges are reading them. There are some really good ones. Enter by July 1 next year. The DEADLINES occur in the ODD years. The AWARDS are presented in each EVEN year. Remember: (1) BY a Mormon, (2) ABOUT Mormons, and also remember that in an entire third of the judgment (which is probably the most substantial reason MORMONVILLE won over Michael Martindale's very original novel) FOR A MORMON AUDIENCE. (Please refer to Melissa Proffitt's excellent essay on= this post). Cheers! Marilyn - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:15:20 -0700 From: "Eric Samuelsen" Subject: RE: [AML] The envious critic It's been interesting to me to follow the Rowling thread, and especially the 'she's a bad writer'/'she's not either a bad writer' debate. This is especially since I have a horse in this race: I think she's a terrific writer, so I root for all the comments on my side of the debate, and snort derisively at all the comments on the other side of it. (There's a compelling image for ya, fat guy snorting at his computer screen!) But it seems to me that a more interesting question might be exactly what constitutes a piece of 'bad writing.' Especially since I'm having this debate with another friend a la Stephen King. She and I share a love for contemporary fiction, and I've been making the case that Stephen King is as good a writer as Jonathan Franzen, or Jane Smiley, or David Foster Wallace, or Toni Morrison, or Don DeLillo. I think he is. I think Tom Wolfe is as good a novelist as Saul Bellow. I think Elmore Leonard is better than any of them. So why? I mean, we read the same people. I just finished the new Jane Smiley; loved it. Also loved Leonard's Tishomingo Blues. Was on a flight to New York, and took along two books I hadn't read, the new DeLillo and the new Stephen King. Thought they were both exceptionally good. And I read Rowling to my daughter, and we have a great experience, and then I read Phillip Pullman to her, again, great experience, and then I read Lemony Snicket, ditto, and we're working on the Artemus Fowl series, ditto. They're all good. Richard Paul Evans, on the other hand, is lousy. John Grisham and Scott Turow both write lawyer thrillers, only Turow is a marvelous writer and Grisham, not so much. John Lescroart and David Baldacci and James Patterson all write the same kind of novel, but Lescroart's better at it than the other two guys. So, okay, one thing that people are always going to look down on are really good writers who write genre fiction. Some folks are always going to turn up their noses and say someone like Dave Wolverton isn't a very good writer because he writes fantasy fiction. Ignore them. Elmore Leonard may be escaping that a little; he's gotten some props from the literati. But for me, deciding if someone's a bad writer doesn't have anything to do with sentences. I couldn't care less how many adverbs friskily frolic across the page. What I care about is how truthful the stories and characters are, how deeply they explore the human condition, how often I nod my head and say 'yes, that's it, that's real, that's what real people would do in those circumstances. I've learned something good and true from reading this.' Bad writers, on the other hand, offer little genuine insight into anything. So Jane Smiley, in Good Faith, shows a nice guy, a genuinely compassionate guy who sells real estate for a living, get caught up in what turns out to a complicated scam. And we see every step of the way how his inherent niceness is morally shallow, how he's actually not the decent human being he seems to be, and how consequently easy he is to manipulate. And then, at the end of the book, God extends to this guy what can only be described as Grace. And by the same token, JK Rowling shows a brave, basically decent young man, turned sour and angry and sullen by what he perceives as his betrayal by grownups he trusted. And he's just itching for action, any kind of action. And he acts, foolishly, and the consequences are dreadful. And yet, and yet. There's Grace for Harry too. And Stephen King shows a group of cops, state police, and they've found something strange, something dangerous. And they don't know what to do with it, and they can't destroy it, and so they just sort of decide by not deciding; they let it sit in a shed, and weird things happen, and they deal with the weird things that happen. It doesn't matter, to me, that the 'strange object' is a portal to another dimension disguised as an old Buick. (In fact, it's kind of cool.) What matters is that King gets the people right. And yes, his style is a titch excessive. So is David Foster Wallace's. And so Saul Bellow and John Updike and John Irving all have attacked Tom Wolfe, saying A Man in Full is 'poorly written.' But it's a wonderful novel, because Wolfe gets the people right, gets the story right, gets the details of life right, and tells the fricking truth. Does this mean I can't love Henderson the Rain King, or Rabbit Redux, or The Ciderhouse Rules? Nonsense. Then there's Elmore Leonard. No one writes dialogue better. Nobody nails character better. Nobody gets inside the humanity of low lifes and con men and seedy, tired old cops better. So he writes crime novels. He's true and he's real. So, pronouncing gassily away, here's what I think: genre fiction can be as good as 'literary fiction', good writing is about story and character, not sentence structure (assuming a basic competency, thus excluding Rick Evans, who really can't write at all), film is as valid and important and rich and true an artistic medium as fiction (just thought I'd throw that in there) and JK Rowling rocks. And so does Stephen King. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 10:49:16 -0700 From: "Eugene Woodbury" Subject: Re: [AML] Harry Potter Melissa Proffitt wrote: >While I respect your right to have opinions about what you like, I most >strenuously disagree that any of what you have cited above is wrong I didn't say it was "wrong." I wasn't making some kind of moral judgement.= I said it "bothered me." Which it did. It irritated me. It pulled me out of the story. I don't care how many "rules" a writer breaks as long as the narrative keeps me in the story. A good story, for me, whether high brow or low brow, "classic" literature or comic books, is one that pulls me in and keeps me there. Anything that dumps me out of the experience, whether the prose, or the plot, or because the theater has a lousy print that keeps melting on the screen, is going to become a factor in my enjoyment of it, and that I will object to. How much is too much is different for every person. Tastes differ. Tolerances differ. You may like nuts in your chocolate chip cookies. I'm= not going to eat them if they are. If this were not true then we would all automatically like the same things for the same reasons. And it'd be a boring, monochromatic world. Probably the fundamental and most tangible reaction when I don't like a book/movie/play/whatever is disappointment. Then I will search for ways to qualify what is, again, a totally subjective response, yet which must be communicated in the language of some objective standard, else it would be totally meaningless. There wouldn't be much point to this discussion if our only valid objection to a work of art was, "I didn't like it, so there." There are rules for a reason. "Artistic" rules are taught in writing= classes (and film classes and drama classes) for a reason. If a student wrote "a very heavy load of homework" in an creative writing course, I'm sure the teacher would red-pencil it. The reason being that time and experience have established that getting carried away with adverbs tends to dampen the quality of the prose. Stephen King wrote "adverbs are not your friend" because they usually are not. It's an old saw, but you've got to learn the rules before you can learn how to break them the right way. Some may believe Rowling broke them the right way. I don't. The counter-argument is that her adverbs enhance the prosody of her her prose. It's a good point, I think. But I still don't agree. I can't resist citing Dennis Lythgoe's review of A PERFECT DAY, by Richard Paul Evans, which was just posted on the list. Lythgoe notes in the first paragraph, referring to "The Christmas Box," "The awkwardness of sentence construction is gone." Well, obviously, the sentence construction of the "The Christmas Box" wasn't so awkward that gazillions of people didn't read the book and didn't enjoy it. But Lythgoe, who considers that best-seller "amateurish," has to explain that adjective using terms that will have some sort of consistent, objective meaning to the people reading his review. It doesn't mean Lythgoe's terminology is absolute, not-to-be-questioned, written in stone. A byline on a review says to me: this is my educated opinion, take it or leave it. But I do hope the reviewer believes in the "rightness" of his opinions, whether I agree with him or not. I don't want to play ping pong with a lump of pudding. Still, convictions require more of a foundation than personal passion. Lacking common reference points--rules--what do we talk about? How do we explain ourselves? The fact that there are laws doesn't remove the need for judges, nor does it mean that judges will agree on all outcomes. But= without laws judging is capricious and untrustworthy. The ref reviewing the instant replay doesn't award the goal because he has a warm feeling in his heart= for a particular team, he's looking to see if the ball crossed the plane of the goal line, because that's what it says in the rules. And that's what the armchair quarterbacks will be arguing about tomorrow morning at the water cooler. Eugene Woodbury - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:39:40 -0500 From: "b5dorsai" Subject: [AML] OT: Perez-Reverte novels I guess that I will have to come out of lurker mode to ask this. I have been reading works by Arturo Perez-Reverte (Flanders Panel and The Club Dumas) with friends at work. Perez-Reverte has been a fertile area of discussion for us. However, I have been searching the web for additional literary insight into his works but can only find the normal reviews like the ones found at the end of the Amazon.com pages. Does anyone on this list know of a website that provides essays on authors and their works? Also, I am not looking for the web-pages where you can buy an essay or paper for your Literature 101 class, either. :-) Please respond to me off-line at b5dorsai@kascable.com. By the way, even though I usually do not make any comments on the subjects discuss, I have always found this list to be intellectually stimulating and a worthwhile use of my time. Rick Thomas - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 17:00:34 -0500 From: "Tony Markham" Subject: RE: [AML] CARD _Ender's Shadow_ Two recommendations: C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia Ursula K. LeGuin's EarthSea books And if the movies hadn't been made, I'd recommend Tolkien's Lord of the Rings These are not just good books, they are great books that happen to be entertaining for young minds. I can't recommend LeGuin enough, she is one of the best writers I know of. The EarthSea series is filled with gospel resonances far too subtle for a young reader on her first perusal. Tony Markham - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:24:15 -0700 From: "David and Dianna Graham" Subject: [AML] Re: Card_Ender's Shadow, or Book Recommends for youth When I was 16, my favorite book was _The Left Hand of Darkness_ by Ursula= Le Guin. It's brilliant and it's still a favorite of mine. I'd describe it, but I found a good description at the following link. I hope she checks it out. If she dug Ender, she'll probably get a kick out of Genly Ai. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness Aside from the interesting study of a biologically gender free society, if I'm remembering correctly, there was an oracle of sorts that Genly had to= go see (he was a fugitive for a large part of the book). Many of the planet's legends were parallel to cross-culture earth legends. That was really fantastic. Now I can't wait to read the book again. Dianna [Graham] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:12:12 -0700 From: "Jongiorgi Enos" Subject: Re: [AML] Now here's a great story line Lisa, I was particularly interested in what you said (snipped below). It jogged my memory. I was born in Houston, originally, and while my maternal line gets more attention because of my Italian first name, my paternal Texan line runs as deep. My paternal grandmother, Mildred Lynch (if a writer had made up that name, I'd say it was corny or clich=E9d!), was, for a time, an interior decorator through Sears. She worked extensively in the area of the Stake= you now live in, and in fact, during the Seventies, decorated many of the original Apollo astronaut's homes down there. (They were Sears drapes, mind you... but they were ASTRONAUTS buying Sears drapes!) The government institutions of our country (FBI, CIA, NSA, NASA, etc., the whole alphabet soup) have long loved Mormons. We're team-players, toe-the-line kind of people, patriotic, inherently institutional and hierarchical. SO! Your point is exceedingly well taken. If we presuppose that 1) the Second Coming will be long delayed; and 2) no major WWIII or other disruption radically alters the progressive state of things; and that 3) the government and/or major multinational corporations are the ones to get us into extensive space exploration and/or colonization (versus private ventures), THEN, it makes perfect sense that a strong LDS presence will be a part of it -- at the administrative levels, at least, if not on the colonial front lines. We are a pioneer-ethos people, it has to= be said, and going out to start "branches" is in our blood. Jongiorgi Enos - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:18:29 -0700 From: "Annette Lyon" Subject: Re: [AML] The envious critic "mom's have no spare time; they write in the time-warp wrinkles between their multiple universes" Jongiorgi, thanks for the laugh! I haven't ever heard it put quite so succinctly before. Annette Lyon - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 17:34:16 -0800 From: Jeff Needle Subject: Re: [AML] (SL Trib) Richard Paul Evans, _A Perfect Day_ I'd love to be there! It would be great meeting so many of you. The flames have kept their distance -- but not too far. Perhaps four miles= to the east, blocked by a reservoir. The fires to the north are about 20 miles away. The smoke and debris in the air are just incredible. Very hard to breathe. All of us down here know people who have lost their homes. In one community alone (Scripps Ranch), more than 300 homes burned, virtually destroying the community. And yesterday, I watched in horror as one local reporter stood at the intersection that leads to my doctor's house, watching the fires rush toward his residence. Happily, the fire was stopped before it got there. And one final anecdote. My friend Ed Wammack is a former bishop, now serving as disaster preparedness leader for his stake. This past Saturday,= he took time off from his job as assistant manager at DI to do a scheduled emergency preparedness drill. Little did any of us know he'd be back at the Stake Center in less than 24 hours. Thanks for the good thoughts. - ---------------- Jeff Needle jeff.needle@general.com jeffneedle@tns.net - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 22:00:58 EST From: JanaRiess@aol.com Subject: [AML] L'Engle YA fiction =A0 =A0 In a message dated 10/27/03 7:43:25 PM, owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com writes: =A0 =A0 > How about Madeleine L'Engle's books? A Wrinkle in Time is the most > famous, being a Newberry winner, but it's actually my least favorite the > O'Keefe family series. My favorite is A Swiftly Tilting Planet. The > Austin family books, also by L'Engle, are good too, even though The > Young Unicorns is a bit far fetched. > =A0 My favorite L'Engle YA novel is A HOUSE LIKE A LOTUS. It is an incredibly powerful story about forgiveness, particularly about how forgiving= grown-ups for their imperfections is such an important part of becoming an adult. = I haven't read it in a long time, but I used to love it. Now I tend to= prefer her adult NF stuff on creativity and theology. =A0 When I applied to college, we had to write an essay about any person --= past or present, real or fictional -- that we'd like to be apprenticed to, and= why. I chose L'Engle. Then when I was a college senior, she was chosen to be our commencement speaker, so with all the pluck of a 21-year-old I wrote her= a letter and invited her out to dinner with some of my friends. She came (I found out later that she turned down the president of the college in order= to honor her prior commitment to us!) and it was an amazing evening. =A0 I'm now friends with ML's editor at Shaw, and she told me a while back that her health is deteriorating. It is very sad to think that there may never= be another L'Engle book for me to look forward to. What a gifted and= gracious lady. =A0 Jana Riess =A0 =A0 Sender: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: aml-list - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #210 ******************************