Annual

of the

Association for Mormon Letters

2004

Association for Mormon Letters Provo, Utah © 2004 by the Association for Mormon Letters. After publi- cation herein, all rights revert to the authors. The Association for Mormon Letters assumes no responsibility for contri- butors’ statements of fact or opinion.

Editor: Linda Hunter Adams Production Director: Marny K. Parkin Staff: Robert Cunningham Marshelle Mason Papa Jena Peterson Amanda Riddle Jared Salter Erin Saunders Anna Swallow Jodi Traveller

The Association for Mormon Letters P.O. Box 51364 Provo, UT 84605-1364 (801) 714-1326 [email protected] www.aml-online.org

Note: An AML order form appears at the end of this volume. Contents

Presidential Address Our Mormon Renaissance Gideon O. Burton 1

Friday Sessions Keynote Address The Place of Knowing Emma Lou Thayne 9

The Tragedy of Brigham City: How a Film about Morality Becomes Immoral Michael Minch 23

The Novelization of Brigham City: An Odyssey Marilyn Brown 29

Pious Poisonings and Saintly Slayings: Creating a Mormon Murder Mystery Genre Lavina Fielding Anderson 35

Murder Most Mormon: Swelling the National Trend (Part II) Conspiring to Commit Paul M. Edwards, read by Tom Kimball 39

God and Man in The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint Bradley D. Woodworth 43

Brady Udall, the Smart-Ass Deacon Mary L. Bingham Lee 47

Egypt and Israel versus Germany and Jews: Comparing Margaret Blair Young’s House without Walls to the Bible Nichole Sutherland 53

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Stone Tables: Believable Characters in Orson Scott Card’s Historical Fiction Holly King 57

Out of the Mouth of Babes: An Analysis of Orson Scott Card’s Use of Dialogue in Ender’s Game Casey Vanderhoef 61

Subversion and Containment in Xenocide Daniel Muhlestein 65

Saturday Sessions Keynote Address Art and Soul: Lessons from Willa Cather for Mormon Writers, Critics, and Audiences Marilyn Arnold 75

“I Write Personal Essays to Save My Soul”: The Sermonic Roots of Eugene England’s Literary Voice Travis Manning 85

Bridging the Divide: Writing about the Spirit for the National Young Adult Market Kimberley Heuston 97

Real Life, Who Needs It?: Real World Influences on the Writing of Young Adult Fiction Randall Wright 101

Defiling the Hands with a Holy Book: Future of Book of Mormon Scholarship Mark Thomas 109

Cities of Refuge Harlow S. Clark 115

Gathering in Nauvoo: Remembrances of the Lofgren Family Elizabeth Mangum 123

Sister Bean and Satan’s Power: A Look at Contemporary LDS Legends Ronda Walker 129

Mormon Women Writers and the Healing Power of Truth Kelly A. Thompson 135

iv Contents

Wallace Stegner’s Gathering of Zion: Creating a Usable Mormon Past Jennifer Minster Asay 141

Telling the Truth: Teaching Creative Writing to LDS Students Jack Harrell 145

The Cultural Shaping of American LDS Women Jacqueline Thursby 151

Questing I, Altogether Other, or Both? Three Poems and a Prose Bit on Nature Patricia Gunter Karamesines 167

My Big Fat Greek Wedding as a Model for LDS Filmmakers Eric Samuelsen 173

“Dangerous Questions Affecting Closer Interests”: Subversion and Containment in “The Senator from Utah” Kylie Turley 179

A Mind-Body-Spirit Assault: The True Antagonist in The Giant Joshua Michelle Ernst 187

Holiness Emerging from My Mouth Jacqueline Osherow 191

Writing Religion from a Christian Perspective David McGlynn 193

The Power of Parables Sarah Read 197

The Threat of Mormon Cinema Gideon O. Burton 199

NOTE: Unless otherwise identified, all of the papers in this compilation were delivered at the Association for Mormon Letters Annual Meeting, “Passing the Portals: Mormon Literature for the Twenty-first Century,” 21–22 February 2003, at Utah Valley State College, chaired by Cherry Silver and Jen Wahlquist, sponsored by the Association for Mormon Letters; the Center for the Study of Ethics, UVSC; and the Department of English, UVSC. Also presented but not submitted for publication were “The Mormon Literature Database” by Gideon Burton, Connie Lamb, Robert Means, and Larry Draper; and “A Spycho-Social Evaluation of Edgar Mint” by Charles J. Woodworth.

v Presidential Address

Our Mormon Renaissance

Gideon O. Burton

enaissance. The very word conjures notions of And this from the poet laureate of both Cambridge R possibility. It means revival, rebirth, and by and Oxford! English literature was in trouble. Writers this term we celebrate the best of human creativity, like Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard began to the realization of our greatest potential in art and imitate Petrarch’s sonnets. But it took most of the literature. Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Galileo, sixteenth century for British writers to experiment Cellini, Montaigne, Raphael, Gutenberg, Giotto, with poetic meters that actually sounded good. We Petrarch, Castiglione, Cervantes, Copernicus, often think of Shakespeare representing the Michelangelo, Milton—in the bright shadow of Renaissance, but long before Shakespeare came these leading lights, is it presumptuous to name a the experimenters who were less successful with Mormon Renaissance? Is it an embarrassing under- their subjects and their sounds. Consider Richard statement, an oxymoron? Of course it is! You can’t Stanyhurst, who diligently translated Virgil’s compare My Turn on Earth to King Lear, or Arnold Aeneid into English, producing lines like these: Friberg to Leonardo da Vinci, or an Enrichment Madness hath enchanted your wits, meeting refrigerator magnet to Ghiberti’s baptistry you townsmen unhappy? doors in Florence. That’s just not fair. The Euro- Ween you, blind hoddypecks, the Greekish pean Renaissance looms so large, its accomplish- navy returned? [. . .] ments are so rich and vast, that the artistic and But lo! To what purpose do I chat such literary achievements of our people in comparison janglery trim-trams? (556–57) could only seem, well, very small indeed. To what purpose? I think I know. A few janglery Our culture is in the same position as British trim-trams must be coughed out before “To be or culture was in the early sixteenth century. The Ital- not to be” can come to be. The European Renais- ian Renaissance had been underway for two hun- sance was a period of three hundred years. For the dred years by then, and English authors looked Mormon Renaissance, patience is in order—as well back at Castiglione or Petrarch in Italy with shame as tolerance and encouragement for those in the and envy. And they should have been ashamed and apprenticeship of their craft, or those who are will- envious, for English literature was in pretty bad ing to experiment with new forms of expression or shape. John Skelton, for example, wrote many media. In the nineteenth century, less than twenty poems with form and content like this one, whose Mormon novels were published. In the twentieth lines describe a grotesque moonshiner: century, there have been a thousand. Mormon With a whim wham pens have awakened, and we would do better to Knit with a trim tram measure and commend each moment of literary Upon her brain pan; progress, than to await the messianic arrival of Like an Egypt-i-an. (77) some future Mormon Milton.

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For this reason the Association for Mormon a writing teacher I am continually amazed how Letters presents its awards, prints its publications, many students fancy themselves to be writers with- and holds its conferences: to encourage and cri- out bothering to be readers. The greatest writers tique Mormon authors. For nearly thirty years we know their debts to generations who preceded them, have been teaching one another upon whose shoul- and in their long apprenticeships have tried on words, ders we must stand to reach upward. I wholeheart- styles, and forms they found effective in the great- edly believe Wayne Booth’s dictum that Mormons est writers. Shakespeare was derivative, and glori- will never attain a great artistic culture until we ously so. I do not mean he simply borrowed plots. have achieved a great critical culture (Booth, 32), He studied and transformed the genres he had read, for until we learn discernment, until we can sepa- from Senecan tragedy to pastoral romance. His son- rate the wheat from the chaff aesthetically and eth- nets also show him working by imitation, closely ically, we would not even recognize a Mormon observing specific rhetorical strategies and patterns Shakespeare if we had one. You will forgive me if I from his predecessors. The great Renaissance liter- suggest that, after examining hundreds of Mormon ary works came about as acts of emulation. publications and products, I find there yet remains Can we pretend to achieve Mormon Shake- some winnowing to be done. speares if we will not imitate Shakespeare’s respect Criticism was a central component animating for and careful study of his predecessors? Can we the European Renaissance, for the Renaissance was pretend to aspirations in the novel if we will not not simply a period in which genius somehow flour- study how the best of novels work, both in our ished; those accomplishments occurred in response own tradition and the larger world? I have read to and in very conscious appreciation of superior some current LDS domestic fiction and know full works of art that had preceded them. Paradoxically, well the authors have read neither Jane Austen nor the great strides forward of the Renaissance were John Updike. I see some LDS Young Adult fiction only possible by looking steadfastly backward. They whose authors haven’t bothered with E. B. White looked to models of the greatest works of literature or with LDS writer Virginia Sorensen’s Miracles on among the Greeks and Romans and strove to imi- Maple Hill, which won the Newbery Medal in tate the powers they perceived in poets like Horace 1957. And if Mormon writers of popular fiction and Ovid, in orators like Cicero and Demosthenes, have read Dickens or Twain, it is not very apparent. in playwrights like Terence and Seneca, and in the Do you want to write a philosophical novel but epic writers Homer and Virgil. The past, they felt, have not read Herman Melville or Umberto Eco? was passport to their future. They felt inferior to We have popular historical novels in spades now, what was written long before, and in this strong but have these authors read Stephen Crane, Irving humility they found a patience to observe the for- Stone, Lew Wallace, Gore Vidal? Any Mormon mal qualities of Latin syntax or of Greek construc- writing historical fiction better have read Maurine tions, and studied the classical authors as much for Whipple’s Giant Joshua and Virginia Sorensen’s their form and style as for content, for their rheto- A Little Lower than the Angels. We condemn our- ric, their arrangement, their use of reasoning and selves to a cycle of ephemeral pulp unless and until their riches of rhythm. The ancient writers were we follow a literary spirit of Elijah, turning to our held in awe, but the Renaissance humanists turned literary forefathers and foremothers, preparing for their awe into analysis, knowing they could never our children works that will outlast the first paper match the achievements of the ancients without they are printed on. understanding their methods. Such looking back and looking closely at our I believe we have the same inferiority complex literary heritage does not suit well today’s produce- as Renaissance authors did, but I don’t know that and-consume markets, where appetites are quickly we have transformed those feelings of inadequacy fed and satisfied with little accounting to the past or into a similar humility in which we are willing to to the future. When the entire culture has attention study carefully exemplary authors from the past. As deficit disorder, it takes an act of bravery to look

2 Our Mormon Renaissance over one’s shoulder even a decade or two, or to Mormonism valued literature the same way that look beyond the afternoon’s best-seller list into a the Renaissance humanists did—as a vital link both lasting future. Planned obsolescence is the reality with the past and with the future, as a place where of contemporary publishing, and Mormon mar- a more holistic vision of human achievement could kets, like national ones, feed on novelty, not neces- find its proper expression. Elder Levi Edgar Young sarily quality, and there is always the distinct was particularly ardent in the 1950s in attempting possibility that a popular success may be falsely to reanimate this early vision for language, learn- equated with literary success. In contrast to today’s ing, and literature, reminding the Saints how book marketing, I think of the publisher Aldus “Joseph Smith himself became a student of Greek Manutius in Renaissance Venice. Committed to and Hebrew, and classes in the ancient languages issuing the best texts of the best literary authors of were organized in the Kirtland Temple” (Young, antiquity, his press put out quality, affordable edi- 1950, 117). In Nauvoo schools and a university tions of almost every significant Greek and Latin were founded. “The need for a fine library was author and made possible the growth of those keenly felt,” explained Elder Young, “for the seven- humanist studies that became the backbone of a ties must then as now be eagerly reading and liberal education to this day. searching for the truths of the gospel” (Young, If we look back to the early days of Mormon- 1952, 104). Like Orson Whitney before him, Levi ism we can find this same Renaissance hunger for Edgar Young emphasized that a missionary’s role good literature, an appreciation of things literary was not merely to dispense gospel truths, but also that went beyond gift books and doctrinal treatises. to discover them among the peoples and writings “We have an ardent desire to increase the value of of the world. In 1845 the Times and Seasons our literary productions,” said Elder Francis M. described Nauvoo’s Seventies library: Lyman in 1899, speaking of the Sunday School The concern has been commenced on a foot- organization (Lyman, 83). The Sunday School had, ing and scale broad enough to embrace the arts since the pioneers arrived in Utah, established and sciences, every where: so that the Seventies’ libraries in wards consisting of classical literature, while traveling over the face of the globe as the and church auxiliaries like the Relief Society pro- Lord’s “Regular Soldiers,” can gather all the curi- moted both the reading of great authors and the ous things, both natural and artificial, with all writing of fiction. There have been so many Relief the knowledge, inventions, and wonderful Society lessons on studying the English novel or specimens of genius that have been gracing the Shakespeare that in the Mormon Literature Data- world for almost six thousand years . . . [form- base we have had to establish the Relief Society les- ing] the foundation for the best library in the son as a distinct literary genre. The Improvement world! (Qtd. in Young, 1952, 104) Era meant improvement educationally and cultur- A few years later in Salt Lake City, attempting still ally, not just spiritually, and tried to carry into to fulfill this ambition of gathering and appreciat- Mormon circles larger discussions about educa- ing the world’s best achievements, the combined tion, books, and films. Mormon history is espe- seventies quorums proposed the erection of an cially rich in the literary contributions of women, extensive rotunda in Great Salt Lake City, to be from Eliza R. Snow’s poetry to the many literary called the “Seventies’ Hall of Science,”—some- contributions of Emmeline Wells as editor of the thing like the British Museum that many of the Women’s Exponent, to the annual short fiction con- early Twelve had visited in London. Brigham tests in the Relief Society Magazine. Young’s brother, Joseph Young, headed the project, From the pulpit of general conference good liter- with Truman Angell designing the building in ature has been endorsed and recommended, not an ambitious gothic revival style (Young, 1952, simply in negative terms to contrast with inappro- 104–5). In this the early Mormons were like those priate entertainment, but because in its beginnings of the Renaissance whose imaginations had been

3 AML Annual 2004

fired by the architectural ruins of Rome and who and music. All that is useful, great, and good; similarly desired a cultural revival on a grand scale. all that is calculated to sustain, comfort, instruct, The great Rotunda was not built, but this ideal edify, purify, refine or exalt intelligences. of collecting and disseminating the best litera- (Pratt, 12) ture of the past took hold, and soon the Seventies If we do not see ourselves as participating in library contained the works of John Locke, Tacitus, the ongoing Mormon Renaissance, then we have Goethe, Bunyon, Marco Polo, and Charles Darwin. abandoned the sense of vision that gave a few thou- In 1851 a vast library was purchased in New sand immigrants and frontiersmen the courage to York City and brought out to the Utah frontier, lay down cities and raise up temples, founding uni- adding to the territorial library the works of Shake- versities, colonies and industries, confident that speare, Milton, Bacon, Homer, Juvenal, Lucretius, God was providently leading his people forward Virgil, Euripides, Sophocles, Plato, Montaigne, despite mobocracy, apostasy, and primitive condi- Spenser, Herodotus, Goldsmith, and others. The tions. Their small beginnings were matched by library received copies of the New York Herald, their grand vision. , the New York Evening Post Philadelphia Saturday The early Latter-day Saints shared with their Courier, and the North American Review. Of the Renaissance progenitors a profound sense of oppor- scientific works there were Newton’s Principia, tunity, renewal, wonder, and discovery that came Herschel’s Outlines of Astronomy, and Von Hum- about in the wake of those ships that had newly boldt’s Cosmos. . . . The treatises on philosophy traversed the planet and opened new worlds up included the works of John Stuart Mill, Martin to the Renaissance mind: Colombus had discovered Luther, John Wesley, and Emanuel Swedenborg the New World; de Gama had rounded the Cape (Young, 1952, 105–6). of Good Hope and opened the East to the West; We have a very strong history of valuing litera- Cabot had sighted Newfoundland; Vespucci had ture and writing in Mormonism, if we will embrace found Brazil, Balboa had discovered the Pacific our own people’s history and reanimate their early Ocean, Magellan had circumnavigated the earth; vision of literature’s role in building up a civilized Jacques Cartier had discovered the St. Lawrence and sophisticated people, equally at ease with reli- Seaway. Similarly, early advances in science had gious doctrine and with secular knowledge. opened up both the heavens and the earth: Coper- The Mormon Renaissance is not something in nicus purported the heliocentric universe which the distant future, but already something underway. Galileo’s telescope and Tycho Brahe’s observation It began with Mormonism itself, for the restored confirmed; and Robert Hooke’s microscope in the gospel names the rebirth not only of the primitive Christian church, but the rebirth of human civi- seventeenth century would open another world. In lization itself and of those liberal ideals of em- this context of expanded possibility, it became pos- bracing all truth that shared by both Latter-day sible to imagine new orders of being, new social Saints and their Renaissance forbears. Our theo- worlds to match the riches and wonders of the logy, explained Parley P. Pratt, physical world opening up. Thomas More’s Utopia is an excellent example of how the Renaissance is the science of all other sciences and useful humanists both looked backward to the ancient arts . . . philosophy, astronomy, history, math- world as a model (More’s Utopia updated Plato’s ematics, geography, languages, the science of in fantasizing a better human order on letters; and blends the knowledge of all matters Republic of fact, in every branch of art, or of research. It earth) and forward to new possibilities that had includes, also, all the scientific discoveries and been opened in the human spirit just as new geog- inventions—agriculture, the mechanical arts, raphies had been opened up on the horizon. architecture, shipbuilding, the properties and The nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints con- applications of the mariner’s compass, navigation tinued this Renaissance tradition in simultaneously

4 Our Mormon Renaissance looking back to ideal societies in antiquity—the way, finding treasures in foreign ports, and weath- primitive Church and Enoch’s City of Zion— ering storms and waves. while embracing the American ideal symbolized by The transformative powers of literature, the the very frontier that they pioneered, where new spiritual resources of imaginative writing, were not human worlds seemed as possible as those vast lost upon the Protestant reformers who formed the new landscapes before them. Mormons have second wave of the European Reanissance. “I am always envisioned a millennial society in the not persuaded,” said Martin Luther, too distant future, embodying our highest ideals. that without knowledge of literature pure theo- Mormons put their social idealism to work, of logy cannot at all endure, just as heretofore, course, creating Nauvoo, Great Salt Lake City, and when letters have declined and lain prostrate, the United Order communities of late nineteenth- theology, too, has wretchedly fallen and lain century Utah in real-life Utopian experiments. Like prostrate; nay, I see that there has never been a Thomas More, or Nathaniel Hawthorne, our great revelation of the Word of God unless He literature has included attempts to depict an ideal- has first prepared the way by the rise and pros- ized society. In Added Upon Nephi Anderson por- perity of languages and letters, as though they trayed a millennial world where the literary arts were John the Baptists. Certainly it is my desire would be as significant as the innovations in eco- that there shall be as many poets and rhetori- nomics and politics that other utopian literatures cians as possible, because I see that by these have emphasized. More and Anderson are fol- studies, as by no other means, people are won- derfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth lowed by speculative Mormon authors like Orson and for handling it skillfully and happily. Scott Card. In the realm of science fiction we can Therefore I beg of you to urge your young recognize the Renaissance impulse to conceptual- people to be diligent in the study of poetry and ize new worlds. rhetoric. (176–77) Are we now reluctant to voyage upon the dan- gerous but rewarding seas of other genres, other The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth uses for literature? Are we content to settle for and seventeenth centuries brought a new focus some of the crass and hackneyed uses of literature upon the literary, and upon the obligation of each that surround us? Or can we envision literature as Christian to find his or her way not only by read- carrying us toward something, as proving not an ing scripture, but by writing. The personal journal ornament but a necessary accouterment of an exalted became a necessary component of protestant society? To see the Mormon Renaissance fully Christianity, for each person needed to compose achieved we must re-envision the function of Mor- his or her own salvation narrative, a record of God’s mon literature. It will not be a vehicle for marshal- providence. Sometimes I think we cheapen the ing recruits; it will not be pulpit pablum to notion of a personal record, as though we toss a decorate doctrine; it must not be an inert alterna- bone to the grandchildren by assembling a passable tive to worldly media; it shouldn’t be an uncritical scrapbook. We would do well to reread the soul- imitation of established genres. It must be seen as wrenching devotions and meditations of John an engine, a vehicle for discovering truths sacred Donne. When he wrote “no man is an island,” he and secular, a medium for bringing about Zion. was not writing for posterity; he was writing for This is the understanding of literature that Orson sanity, each line a lifeline to his God. George Whitney gave: literature is an epistemology, a way Herbert called his confessional poetry his “private of knowing, a way of capturing and focusing what ejaculations”—which in his day meant short is of good report and praiseworthy within and out- earnest prayers uttered in moments of emergency. side Mormon borders. Literature is not a travel His poems may have lasted to futurity, but they brochure, advertising an attractive destination. It is were his present means to wrestle with God, to the ship in which we travel, by which we wend our express his joys and to calm his fears. Perhaps the

5 AML Annual 2004 best Mormon tradition of devotional writings that doubt and the misgivings and misfirings of a mil- can ever be written must never be done with an eye lion sordid sorts. And in the middle of this mess to publication, but to meditation. I think, perhaps, God has slapped us on the cheeks, has shoved a that the great strength of Mormon writing will paintbrush or a keyboard in our hands, presented come only as we give up worrying how our words us with canvas and paper and stolen scraps of time will sell, or how they will represent our culture. An and told us Be like me, create. He has given us inner Renaissance is the only authentic one we redeeming work to do, if we will take the invitation can fashion. Revision is repentance; turning a page to work out our tangled thoughts, to work through is turning a new leaf. style and symbol, plot and character, to find him Such personal literary reformation is daunting and to better know the suffering he has known, to at times, perhaps because of the very fact that our find our siblings, all our fellow sufferers, and find literary forbears loom so large in their eloquence. ourselves renewing and renewed through the rough We fear we could never measure up. Why should and tumble of these words and images, patterns we write? “Every ship is a romanitc object,” said and rhyme, music and color and rhythm. And yet Emerson, “except that we sail in. Embark, and the we stand like balking Beehives at our first youth romance quits our vessel and hangs on every other dance, unwilling to embrace the Bridegroom, sail in the horizon. Our life looks trivial, and we unwilling to accept the gifts he lavishes on us shun to record it” (252). But no life is trivial if through that unspeakable opulence that is literacy. recorded with vigor and honesty and with respect I am a Mormon, and so I must create. I have for the reforming force of form itself. To record come to know a creating God, who calls himself one’s life is to reform one’s life. In the spirit of the Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters Renaissance exploration—both geographical and of the Greek alphabet, his very name reminding literary—we should set sail across the unexplored me that his good news comprises all that can be regions of our past or present, with as much faith said and thought within the bounds of language. in where words can take us as they had faith that Can I be his disciple, really, if I will not unleash the ships would take them. They opened up worlds, godly gift of language he has given me? I do not and words opened up them. think I can. So let the Mormon Renaissance begin within The Mormon Renaissance begins for us all the each of us! Enough of this hand-wringing and moment any one of us steps forward to accept timidness, this reluctance to compose ourselves in the rebirth offered to us through the medium ink, to do that work with words that is worthy of of the Word. Immersed in words, will we be bap- the Word, the Son of God, who descended below tized by the Word, by the divine capacities of lan- all things and above all things, tracing for us the guage, or will we stand to one side idling with necessary trajectory of our souls and our art. catchphrases and soundbytes, regurgitating words Enough of worrying ourselves into mumbling and and patterns acceptable within some applauded stumbling, when we have so much to say, so much genre, unwilling to bite our teeth into the pith and to express, inspired doubly by a living faith and our core of what our language can convey if given even faith in the lively, godly nature of the arts. We hold half its mighty scope? back our personal salvation and we mock the progress The Mormon Renaissance begins as we respect of Zion by not consecrating our aesthetic sensibili- what writing can effect within our souls and our ties, our drafts and redrafts, our stories, our narratives communities. The Renaissance Humanists believed of life in all its vibrant vicissitudes, its mystifying literature could rejuvenate both individual souls contradictions, its soaring ecstasies and soul- and entire civilizations. Literature is a binding force. wrenching defeats. Eternity is within us and before It makes communities and makes communion, both us; we have tasted the goodness of God. Yet we are with God and every soul responding to its potencies. mired in ignorance and mortality and sin and self- It finds the parts of us that we had hidden and

6 Our Mormon Renaissance ignored, it lets us feel the depths of wonder and con- WORKS CITED fusion, pain and joy that we have never dared to Booth, Wayne. “Religion versus Art: Can the Ancient show to others. Oh, it is a messy thing, as messy as Conflict Be Resolved?” In Arts and Inspiration. the lives and thoughts that it reflects, deflects, inspects, Ed. Steven Sondrup, 26–34. Provo, UT: Brigham and redirects. It is a salving, saving medium, and Young University Press, 1980. we have not discovered its rejuvenating center if we Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Complete Writings of Ralph reduce its function to teaching, preaching, or the Waldo Emerson. New York: Wm. H. Wise and Co., narrow motives of fame or money. 1929. When will the Mormon Renaissance begin? Luther, Martin. “Letter to Eoban Hess, March 29, When your Mormon Renaissance begins. So tell 1523.” In Luther’s Correspondence, trans. and ed. me, where is it you have hidden your true self while Preserved Smith and Charles M. Jacobs. Vol. 2. you have tried to write or say what others might Philadelphia: United Lutheran Publication House, approve of? Where is that shadow self, the one so 1918. full of anger and grief and profanity and lust and Lyman, Francis M. In Conference Report, October 1899, 76–83. Salt Lake City: Deseret News Publishing, all the other potent passions in which you live 1899. and move and have your being as much as any bet- Neruda, Pablo. “Births” [Los nacimientos]. In Fully ter self you show at church? Where is he or she? Empowered [Plenos Poderes], trans. Alastair Reid. Free him. Liberate her. Grow brave enough to fol- New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1975. low Jesus and to face your own Sanhedrin, and say Pratt, Parley P. Key to the Science of Theology: A Voice “yes, this is who I am.” Until we are willing to of Warning. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book , 1965. stand condemned in open drama, we are not ready Rollins, Hyder E., and Herschel Baker, eds. The Renais- for the closure of redemption in the final act. sance in England: Non-dramatic Prose and Verse of Your Mormon Renaissance takes shape mis- the Sixteenth Century. Prospect Heights, IL: Wave- shapenly, of course. So show me, where are all your land, 1992. smudged and halting drafts—discarded bodies of Skelton, John. “The Tunning of Elinour Rumming.” In your vain attempts to say your say? There is no Rollins and Baker, 77–81. Renaissance without the thousand dying bodies of Stanyhurst, Richard. The First Four Books of Virgil His Aeneis. In Rollins and Baker, 553–57. those false attempts, the skeletons of first or worst Young, Levi Edgar. In Conference Report, October ideas, piling up a mound of wadded paper, or clot- 1950, 113–19. Salt Lake City: Deseret News Pub- ting up your hard drive in a folder you name lishing, 1950. “scrap.” Creation is vivisection, things come half- ———. In Conference Report, October 1952, 103–7. alive and incomplete, a ream of shameful prose Salt Lake City: Deseret News Publishing, 1952. must dung the way before a seedling roots itself in viability. The ink is amniotic fluid that surrounds and nourishes the thing you bring to being. Renaissance means rebirth. Every birth is vio- lent and delicate, precious, and messy. Birth is “a savage sea,” says Pablo Neruda, “that summons up a wave and plucks a shrouded apple from a tree” (Neruda, 41). We must have the faith to be reborn again and yet again, to find our vision in revision, and then at length we shall emerge, shining and upright, with words to match the glory of our God.

7 Keynote Address

The Place of Knowing

Emma Lou Thayne

t is an honor for me to be here addressing you It’s about knowing. In other languages there are Itoday, my friends. In many ways I am a babe in three verbs for our English verb “to know.” First, your woods, you historians, biographers, genealo- to know a fact—that I’m standing here, you’re sit- gists, analyzers of facts, critics, purveyors of infor- ting there; that 2 + 2 = 4 (or did till quantum mation, researchers, tellers of truth. In fact, when I physics had a say). Second, to know a person, to received a conference schedule from Jen Wahlqulst have acquaintance with someone—as I know my listing my topic as “Messianic Mormon Literature,” daughter Shelley, who drove me to Provo this and another from Cherry Silver saying I would talk morning, or as I know many of you out there. on “New Trends in Mormon Literature,” I nearly Third is simply to know that I know, not related to hopped back on a ship to the Panama Canal that anything palpable or provable, but to know—like had just brought Mel and me home from eleven about the hereafter. days of no-think indulgence on the Caribbean. It Last Monday at 4:35 P.M. I was at the bedside was my fault. I’d been out of town for eleven days of Virginia Parker Peterson, my friend since as they’d tried to reach me. They needed a title for seventh grade at Irving Junior High. She was the program, so Messianic? I looked it up: Marked dying. Her daughter Kari, a nurse, had called me by mystical idealism in behalf of a cherished cause. to come. She knew the fact that I had known Vir- Maybe. But Messianic Mormon Literature? I was ginia for sixty-six years. She had lain in a benign flattered about their estimation of my scholarly coma all day, not responding even to the love of possibilities, and they could not have been more maybe twenty of her family who surrounded her accommodating when I returned and asked them bed. “Lou, we knew she wanted you to be here.” to include a more suitable title. My world of writ- And goodness knows I wanted to be. ing is one that sometimes has little to do with facts, I took her hand—beautiful, the hand of a to say nothing of research. My historian husband pianist, slim, unmarked, always her nails polished— finds truth in what has happened. Without a cal- her beautician daughter Ginni had seen to that endar of events, to him, nothing has happened. My even then—she knew how and knew how much her truth is often in what surrounded that happening mother liked it. and is most often not based on the calendar or My friend’s face was stilled, immobile, far from what’s been written about it, even ordinary, let the face I’d known on a young girl, a vital, colorful, alone Messianic. So instead, my topic will be what free-spirited young girl who dared to wear purple I know something about, like what’s in my new lipstick in eighth grade when the rest of us wore book, The Place of Knowing, The Spiritual Auto- none, who dumbfounded us all by going from the biography of a Mormon Matriarch, out in October sorority at the U, on a mission, and then marrying with Greg Kofford Books. an ensign in the navy, getting her BA at the U

9 AML Annual 2004 when she was the mother of six, and counseling I know thoroughly that angels abide. Miracles there in Student Affairs. I knew her as a contribu- happen. Prayer is expectation and fulfillment. Here tor on our General Board writing committee, as a and there are undivided except by our inability to skier and water-skier, a reader of novels and scrip- see without seeing. Love is eternal. As is God. We tures and news that she’d pass on to me, saying, are too. For all of my life, I’ve been showered with “Lou, you’d love this”—or hate it—she knew me. these truths. But only in my growing older and up What a privilege it is to be known. have I noticed. Maybe because I’ve found them When her one living son was called to the Sec- most often in the ineffable. ond Quorum of the Seventy, she smiled; when he I remember looking that word up about thirty careened off a mountain starting a machine for a years ago to make sure I understood it when a son- young cousin and was paralyzed, she fell in a hall- in-law, Paul Markosian, used it in a poem about way, broke her hip, was taken to a care center and flying solo in a small plane. never left. When her angel, steady, sturdy husband, Ineffable: Beyond expression; indescribable or Wayne, died of cancer two years ago, she began unspeakable. Not to be uttered: the ineffable name her disappearance. Now after surgery and compli- of God. cations with her diabetes dictating the possible I understood it well. It was the moment before amputation of a leg, her four daughters and that the coming of a poem, seeing a baby born, watch- son in his wheelchair knew her well enough to ing that aspen drop its golden leaves in a wind, the know to tell her attendants to pull the tubes, to let rich smell of their mulch, the song of a stream her go. falling into itself, an aria with flute, the flight of a Still holding her hand, as I kissed my dear buddy dancer. It was a wilted plant coming to life with on her forehead, her girls standing near said, “She a drink of water, the crescendo of making love, the fluttered her eyelids—her only sign of life for disappearance of a bruise. It was seeing a vision hours.” Then I leaned close to tell her what I was that I later leaned was not there in the painting of there for—what I know I was there for. the Sacred Grove in the chapel of my childhood. “Virginia, you will be with Marilyn [her sister], It was accord surrounding a table, eyes holding. It your folks, and Wayne—and Kevin [who died at was that region between sleeping and waking, the eighteen months]. You will be welcomed into a beauty ultimate access to how. It was a daughter skiing a you cannot imagine—into the Light. I know, I’ve flawless slalom, another playing a concerto or cre- been there, you know.” I knew she knew. In a freaky ating a stained glass window, any one of them accident on the freeway I’d had a death experience. doing what I can’t—or can. It was the arrival of a We’d talked of it often. Her breathing changed. In friend I had just thought about or the safe return of five minutes my once colorful friend was gone. a dear I had just prayed about. It was the whisper- Drew, her son, with tears streaming down his ing of my mother on the day she died, her talking handsome face, his hands immobile on the arms to someone—not me—as I held her hand and knew of his wheelchair, said, “She waited for you, Emma she was about to join that someone. It was what Lou. She needed you here.” What she needed was happened to me in my death experience and long what I know. return. Ineffable. That third kind of knowing. True or not, I needed to be there, was grateful How does it work in our world? For us writers? beyond words to Karl for calling me, to know to call. Most of us don’t write because we want to; we write I’ll go from here this morning with all of you who because we have to. know so much that I don’t, to speak at her funeral. Thank you for allowing me this chance to We’re all here because we’re writers, part of that examine with you the knowing that is ineffable. solitary, confounding compulsion to put our kind of truth on a page. It is a solitary occupation. Thank Ineffable. all that’s holy, remembering that God so loved the

10 The Place of Knowing world that He didn’t send a committee. But He has Her isolated young-wife home for cheese and honey, given some instructions to the likes of us. As he did And of Santa Barbara and eerie tides that to Emma Smith: “And thy time shall be given to Drew her now for gentle months away from snow. writing, and to learning much” (D&C 25:8). Ours And sometimes of Evangeline lost in the forest is a kingdom of words and access to what inspires primeval. them. Again in Doctrine & Covenants 88:11: “And Grandma’s batter-beating, white-gloved, laughing the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is Daytime self slept somewhere else, and she visited through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which Mellifluous beyond my ardent reach, always off Before me. I followed into rhythms I knew is the same light that quickeneth your understand- Were good, her chamois softness weighing me ings.” That quickening is as persistent as a grain of By morning toward a cozy common center. sand in the brain and then the surprise as it comes up on a screen or a page. The outrageous peace of She died there when I was twelve. I was sleeping, alien, down the hail letting it out. . . . What a forever crazy, lovely dis- In a harder bed, isolated from the delicate ease we have. Destruction that took its year to take her. That night my mother barely touched my hair About this knowing as we write. Just because I can’t And in stiff, safe mechanics twirled the customary prove something does not mean it is not true. Just Corners of my pillow one by one. “Grandma’s gone,” because it does not appear on the calendar does not She said. Crepuscular against the only light mean it did not happen. Alive behind her in the hall, she somehow left. We are, after all, our stories. How to explain My covers fell like lonely lead on only me. the ineffable with a story? A good example is I lay as if in children’s banks of white where Jostein Gaarder’s in Sophie’s Choice: The astronaut, After new snow we plopped to stretch and carve who was not a believer, said to the brain surgeon, Our shapes like paper dolls along a fold. “I have been in the cosmos many times, and never Now, lying on my back, I ran my longest arms has I seen a heavenly being.” The brain surgeon, From hip to head, slow arcs on icy sheets, who was a believer, replied. “I have been inside And whispered childhood’s chant to the breathless many clever brains, but never have I seen a thought room: or an idea.” “Angel, Angel, snowy Angel, “Spread your wings and fly.” This is that third kind of knowing. Beyond believ- And later through experience with the ineffable: ing or even having faith. It’s knowing. It involves a Many years into my adulthood when asked by search for wholeness as ongoing as prayer. Let me my poet friend Maxine Kumin about why I stay take you on my journey to that Place of Knowing, in my Mormonism, I wrote a story to explain it: starting through the perception of a child—through intuition and hope, my first experience with death: When I was a little girl, my father took me to hear Helen Keller in the Tabernacle. I must have First Loss been about eight or nine, and I’d read about Helen My grandma shared her bed with me Keller in school, and my mother had told me her Till she died when I was twelve. story. She decided it would be more important for We slept with breaths that matched. me to go than for her. I remember sitting in the (I went to sleep every night restraining balcony right at the back of that huge domed build- Deliberately one extra breath in five ing that was supposed to have the best acoustics To let her slower time teach mine to wait.) in the world. Helen—everybody called her that— She never knew I waited, but talked walked in from behind a curtain under the choir To me of Mendon where Indians ferreted seats with her teacher, Annie Sullivan. She talked at

11 AML Annual 2004 the regular place—without a microphone in those fog horns—as only he could make happen. Helen days, but we could hear perfectly, her guttural, slow, Keller stood there—hearing through her hand— heavily pronounced speech—all about her life and and sobbing. her beliefs. Her eyes were closed and when it came Probably a lot more than just me—probably time for questions from the audience, she put her lots of us in the audience were mouthing the words fingers on her teacher’s lips and then repeated for to ourselves—“Gird up your loins, fresh courage us what the question had been. She answered ques- take. Our God will never us forsake, and then we’ll tions about being deaf and blind and learning to have this tale to tell—all is well, all is well . . .” read and to type and, of course, to talk. Hearing I could see my great-grandparents, converts from that voice making words was like hearing words for England and Wales and France and Denmark in that the first time, as if language had only come into circle of their covered wagons, singing over their being—into my being at least—that moment. fires in the cold nights crossing the plains. Three of Someone asked her “Do you feel colors?” I’ll them had babies die—all under two—and my grand- never forget her answer, the exact sound of it— mother, great grandpa’s second wife whom he loved, “Some-times . . . I feel . . . blue.” Her voice went up burried in Wyoming. “And should we die, before slightly at the end and meant she was smiling. The our journey’s through, Happy day! all is well. We audience didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. then are free from toll and sorrow too. With the After quite a lot of questions, she said, I would . . . just we shall dwell. But if our lives are spared again like to ask . . . a fa-vor of you.” Of course the audi- to see the Saints their rest obtain, Oh how we’ll ence was all alert. “Is your Mormon prophet here?” make this chorus swell. All is well! All is well!” she asked. There was a flurry of getting up on the So then, that tabernacle, that singing, my ances- front row, and President Heber J. Grant walked up tors welling in me, my father beside me, that mag- the stairs to the stand. She reached out her hand nificent woman all combined with the organ and and he took It. All I could think was, oh, I wish I the man who played it and the man who had led were taking pictures of that. “I . . . would like . . .,” her to it, and whatever passed between the organ she said, “to hear your organ . . . play . . . your fa- and her passed on to me. I believed. I believed it mous song—about your pio-neers. I . . . would all—the seeing without seeing, the hearing with- like . . . to re-mem-ber hear-ing it here,” all the out hearing, the going by feel toward something time holding the hand he had given to her to holy, something that could make her cry and could shake. I liked them together, very much. lift my scalp right off, something as unexplain- I remember thinking I am only a little girl, able as a vision or a mystic connection, something probably others know, but how in the world will entering the pulse of a little girl, something that no she hear the organ? But she turned toward President matter what, would never go away. What it had Grant and he motioned to Alexander Schreiner, to do with Joseph Smith or his vision or his gospel the Tabernacle organist, who was sitting near the I never would really understand—all I know to loft. At the same time President Grant led her up a this day is that I believe. Whatever it is, I believe few steps to the back of the enormous organ— in it. I get impatient with people’s interpretations it has five manuals and eight thousand pipes. We of it, with dogma and dictum, but somewhere were all spellbound. He placed her hand on the way inside me and way beyond impatience or grained oak of the console, and she stood all alone indifference there is that insistent, confounding, so facing us in her long black velvet dress with her help me, sacred singing—All is well. All is well. My right arm extended, leaning slightly forward and own church inhabited by my own people, and prob- touching the organ, with her head bowed. ably my own doctrines, but my lamp, my song— Brother Schreiner played “Come, Come, Ye my church. I would be cosmically orphaned Saints,” each verse a different arrangement, the without it. organ pealing and throbbing—the bass pedals like œ

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That believing stayed. When I was a not-so-young In the years since, the hymn has been trans- mother my knowing found voice in a hymn: lated into uncounted languages, from Swedish to The year before my accident, the Mormon Baba Indonesian, from Spanish to Cantonese. Once church published a long-awaited new hymnbook. my doctor brother on a medical mission with his On page 129 appeared the words I had written wife called me from an island off of Africa to say, while trying to deal with the scary biological illness “Hello, Lou. I’m homesick for you. We just heard of our oldest daughter, then a freshman in college. your hymn sung by wonderful black twelve-year- In 1970 manic depression or bi-polar disease, olds—in Portuguese!” It has been used by other anorexia, and bulimia were unknowns. More than faiths, sung around the world and recorded on tapes bewildered by our usually happy nineteen-year-old and CDs by congregations, duets, solos, groups as Becky’s self-destructive behavior, we stumbled in various as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and New the bleakest time we had known in our family. Age improvising, even in jazz versions and rock and Luckily, we sought professional help, found it in a roll in a new movie RM about returned missionaries. superb doctor and a newly found medical miracle, a simple salt, lithium. She would need it for the Where Can I Turn for Peace? rest of her life. In and out of hospitals, through baf- Where can I turn for peace? fling efforts at continuing school, as she fought for Where is my solace her very life, through anger and despair, she and I When other sources cease never lost touch. To make me whole? During that time of despair, I was working with When with a wounded heart, the General Board of the YWMIA to prepare a pro- Anger or malice, I draw myself apart gram for thousands of teachers of young women. Searching for my soul? My friend Joleen Meredith had composed music Where when my aching grows, for a number of songs to lyrics I had written. We Where, when I languish, needed a finale. Why not a hymn? Like Becky, Joleen Where, in my need to know, had suffered from a genetic depression herself, so Where can I run? I knew that we both understood the imperative Where is the quiet hand behind asking “Where can I turn for peace?” On To calm my anguish? one typically hectic Saturday morning I went to Who, who can understand? my makeshift basement study among the lines and He, Only One. shelves of the storage room, let my pen find its way, He answers privately, and, in less than an hour, intuited three verses with Reaches my reaching, the answer. I called Joleen. She took the phone to In my Gethsemane, her piano, sat, and as I read a line, she composed a Savior and friend. line. We had our hymn, a hymn that would disap- Gentle the peace he finds For my beseeching. pear after that program only to resurface in the Constant he is and kind— new hymnbook. Love without end. The search for inner peace is universal. Who of us does not face grieving, loss, anger, illness, hope- Through her own strength and eventual willing- lessness? I know that the peace expressed in the ness to accept loving support from family, friends, hymn is what provided the ultimate healing for professionals, and much from a young man, Paul, Becky and for me as her mother. When we included who loved her, Becky found after three-and-a-half it in our book Hope and Recovery, our New York years the healing that we so longed for her to find. publisher declared it “too religious.” But we insisted. After twenty years of a good marriage to Paul, three What it spoke of had been basic not only to hope loving sons, success as a stained glass artist and real but to recovery. It stayed in the manuscript. estate agent, but still feeling the stigma of any history

13 AML Annual 2004 of mental illness, she called me, saying, “Mom, I want something as much as I wanted them to. No one to tell my story. Let’s write a book—together. I’ve saw. “You must be wiggling the glasses.” “It’s a talked to lots of girls with the same problems I had, UFO, Emma Lou,” they said, not making fun, just and their mothers hurt as much as they do. Besides, having fun, yet I think believing me. Why, I the problems I had are getting worse.” She knew a thought, not just deny it? But I couldn’t. Bracing lot. I was proud of her. The book we wrote in a for- my elbows on a shoulder or the door of a car, try- mat of alternating Becky’s story with Her mother’s ing to pick the light up anywhere else, using differ- story about the same incidents was published in ent glasses, taking time between viewings—no New York by Franklin Watts, and after two print- matter what. I kept seeing that light. In exactly the ings is now out of print there and being published same place. electronically for print-on-demand by Infinity Finally one said, “Oh well, Emma Lou, we know Publishing in Pennsylvania. you come from a visionary background.” We all laughed. From across the country, we were of dif- Then in my late fifties, seven months before the ferent ages, backgrounds. and experience, selected accident that would take me to The Place of Know- by William Stafford from our applications for resi- ing, came a new kind of knowing—the immediacy dency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. We had of background meeting experience, coming to written, each of us out of our uncommon religious know via the ineffable—and the word “suppose.” backgrounds, from Catholic to Episcopalian to Ger- On November 16 and 17, 1985, seven months man founders of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to my before my own cosmic event on June 29, 1986, Mormon pioneer ancestors, all of us alive in our Halley’s Comet was said to be visible for the first differences. Bill Stafford, a poetic visionary, grown time in nearly a century—the comet seen only every seventy-six years, the one that Mark Twain waited up from the Quaker-like Church of the Brethren, urgently to see before he died. He did. It last appeared had said the day before, “In any poetry workshop in 1910, the year of his death, and was now said to we expect to be stimulated intellectually and emo- be visible just to the right of the Plelades in the tionally, but this is the first time I’ve been in on one eastern sky. where we were stimulated spiritually.” Nine of us residents from the William Stafford The night of my “sighting” we walked home poetry workshop at the Atlantic Center for the Arts along the hard, rippled Atlantic beach that, by day, walked New Smyrna Beach, Florida, as we had for was for driving. Sticking up through the packed ten nights of watching the ocean. That tenth night sand in the slim moonlight, a bright shell caught we took turns looking through four pairs of binocu- my eye. Jean, our naturalist, identified it for me. lars to see the sky. “An angel wing. It’s whole, too! That’s rare for a Naive viewer of the skies, I took my turn, skep- driving beach so much like Daytona.” I took it to tical of seeing anything but milky ways at every my condo, set it on the table, and went to sleep focusing. Instead, after scanning left and right, up with it occupying my night. and down, I called out, “Hey!” Near, but not at, For the next day’s workshop exercise, a Pan- the place we had been instructed to look, darted a toum—a Malaysian verse form I’d never heard of, bright flamboyant light. I handed the binoculars to with lines repeated abcd, bedf, egfh, gihj, iajc. Mine the others, said, “See? See?” They couldn’t see. In came from the night: laughing frustration I pointed it out: “Look—see the star, very bright, just down from Pleiades? Meditations on the Heavens Now, see the two not-so-bright stars just down and The Comet Is an Angel Wing left of that? Now, make an equilateral triangle with Angel wings are on the beach those. At the apex of that—See?” I found one shining in the sand All more experienced with heavens and binocu- One late night looking for the comet lar sightings than I, they each tried, wanted to find We’d been told would be by Plelades

14 The Place of Knowing

I found one shining in the sand It had to be believed, the unbelievable, A nebulous and luminescent cloud like The meteor, the incandescent sparkler writing We’d been told would be near Plelades names by Pleiades A long curved vapor tail by the moon’s first lifted lid Coming through binoculars the night I found A nebulous and luminescent cloud now the comet Striated fragile rippled bone of wave tide wave More than white on black that no one else could see A long curved vapor tall by the moon’s first lifted lid The meteor, the incandescent sparkler writing The shell as smooth and rough as what we walk names by Plelades Striated fragile rippled bone of wave tide wave Suppose he really saw the vision, God, the angel An ancient icon like the comet’s head approaching More than white on black that no one else could see sun A supernatural sight of extraordinary beauty and The shell as smooth and rough as what we walk significance A celestial body grounded for our view Suppose. A new dimension to believing. Later An ancient icon like a comet’s head approaching sun I read: “All direct knowledge is mystical. You can An angel wing was on the beach never prove your experience of a color, a form” A celestial body grounded for our view (Louis Thompson). “The first major step in a reli- One late night looking for the comet. gious life is wonder. Indifference to the sublime Then, just before waking the next morning, wonder of living is the root of sin” (Abraham Joshua out of the night, the word “suppose,” linking comet Heschel). “By intuition, Mightiest Things / Assert and shell to my “visionary background.” In my themselves—and not by terms . . .” (Emily Dickin- Mormonism a fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith has son). Just as it had been in my canyon or in Israel, read James 1:5: “If any of ye lack wisdom, let him wonder was to be my friend in newly understand- ask of God.” On his knees, his heart full of ques- ing the first prophet of my church, his dedication tions, in a grove of trees near his father’s farm in to wondering and expecting a connection to the Vermont, he has a vision. divine, and his supernatural vision of extraordinary A new pantoum for me from the night. beauty and significance. Out of supposing, I wrote still another Medita- The Comet Is a Startling Light tion, this one while in seclusion in Sun Valley just Suppose he really saw the vision, God, the angel three months after my accident and before I could My church owns the story: Joseph in the grove, even read it back. A new kind of meditation was fourteen, supplying me. I was remembering with vivid clar- A supernatural sight of extraordinary beauty and ity being a young Mormon girl sitting in church. significance While praying for a truth that had eluded others The Comet Is Remembering My church owns the story: Joseph in the grove, Not until today this small comet in my scalp: fourteen The clattering of memory: the painting Not unlike Joan, young Buddha, or Mohammed In the chapel of my childhood against the organ While praying for a truth that had eluded others loft: From unusual encounter the gift more than Joseph kneeling at the elevated feet of the Father surprising and the Son. Not unlike with Joan, young Buddha, or The clattering of memory, the painting, Mohammed Backdrop to the hymns, the bishop, and the It had to be believed, the unbelievable sacrament. In unusual encounter, the gift more than surprising. Joseph kneeling at the elevated feet of the Father Looking through binoculars the night I found and the Son. the comet Did the artist put it in—the vision—or did I?

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Backdrop to the hymns, the bishop, and the a friend her age, Susie’s heaven “has an ice cream sacrament, shop, where, when you asked for peppermint stick My quarter-century there, it rose indigenous as ice cream, no one ever said, ‘It’s seasonal.’” music. Better written, Leif Enger’s Peace Like a River is Did the artist put it in—the vision—or did I? a novel about rare faith and even more rare family In the Sacred Grove, sun streaming on the boy affection. In his heaven Reuben finds, “And now, at prayer. from beneath the audible, came a low reverberation. My quarter century there, it rose indigenous as It came up through the soles of my feet. I stood still music, while it hummed upward bone by bone. There is More real now than Palmyra, where I occupied no adequate simile. The pulse of the country worked one grown-up Sunday through my body until I recognized it as music. As In the Sacred Grove: Sun streaming on the boy language. . . . Like a rhyme learned in antiquity, a at prayer verse blazed to mind: O be quick, my soul, to answer Indelible on knowing, like features of a mother Him; be jubilant, my feet! And sure enough my soul giving milk. leapt dancing inside my chest.” Reuben knows he is More real now than the Sacred Grove I occupied in heaven, his heaven. one grown-up Sunday So what about the reality of the “heaven” that I Not until today this small comet in my scalp: know? The heaven I so ardently described to my Indelible in the chapel of my childhood against friend Virginia? My new book, The Place of Know- the organ loft: ing, A Spiritual Autobiography, begins: the vision. Six months later, after another surgery had freed Chapter 1 up an optic nerve and I could see, I returned to my A Journey to the Place of Knowing childhood church, the Highland Park Ward chapel, “. . . an exaltation of joy . . . even more for the first time in maybe twenty years. Little had beautiful than anything in a dream.” changed. Through the entire missionary farewell —Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time that we were there to attend, I studied with amaze- Things happen. Early in the world you travel ment the famous Lee Greene Richards painting into them. One day still huge in the nave that I had sat below for twenty- You rise without prayer in a far camp and five years of growing up. Only the Sacred Grove silently hurry away. was there, trees, sunlight, sky. No boy at prayer, no Having slept under stars and still breathing Father, Son. the greyed fire. Had it ever been there, the vision? I didn’t ask Who would take time to suppose this the middle or need to know. of a lifetime? . . . The day I died my son-in-law Jim and I had to What more personal than believing? Knowing our leave camp early on that Saturday morning, 28 June most intimate truth? Last week my husband and 1986. He needed to be at the hospital, where he I were on Mel’s dream, an eleven-day cruise to the was chief resident in plastic surgery, and I wanted Panama Canal, just the two of us anonymous among to be back to help a good friend with the announce- strangers. We sailed, we ate, we ate, we sailed. And ment party at noon for her daughter’s wedding. we read! Oh we read! Two best-selling authors of Leaving our loved ones asleep, we drove my husband novels took me to their personal place of life after Mel’s new Taurus. Jim at the wheel, we laughed as death, to their individual ideas of heaven. Alice I read from the manual about what knob or button Sebold’s The Lovely Bones is set in heaven. Susie at would activate what magic—like how many miles fourteen has been raped and murdered in the first we were getting or how far before we ran out of gas. chapter and watches life going on without her. With Luckily. I was looking down, reading.

16 The Place of Knowing

Without warning, the crash. A six-pound rod on the end of a rod into my temple. X-rays would like a tire iron with an elbow in it, somehow air- show eight fractures. Jaw broken. Six teeth killed. borne, smashed through the windshield into my My eyeball would have to be moved to allow repair face. It missed my right eye by a hair and lodged in of the socket. Concussion, what else to my brain? the back window of the car. No one should have survived, the police offi- Jim didn’t see the iron bar until it was crashing cers, doctors, staff, and reporters said then. into me, when he saw my head fly back and then But I thought I didn’t even lose consciousness. forward. Without a seat belt, he said later, I’d have Uncharacteristically, my family were all either crashed through the fractured windshield. “What back at camp or otherwise out of town. Jim was hit me?” I asked him, my hand at my temple full of meeting with his chief of surgery, Dr. Louis Morales, blood. Glass in my eye. That handful of blood. Jim renowned for facial reconstruction on children, to looked at me, then to the back of the car. “You’ll discuss what needed to happen for me. I lay alone never believe what hit you, Grey,” I heard him say. in some white room, waiting but not waiting. “It’s huge! A piece of iron as long as my arm, and Out of the dim our oldest daughter, Becky, it’s stuck in the back window.” I guess I asked him mysteriously appeared, almost vaporized for me. to give me his T-shirt for the blood. He pulled onto Jim had found her Markosian family where I had the shoulder of the highway, stopped, stripped off told him they were—week-ending at Snowbird his shirt, pushed it against my temple and eye. resort twenty miles away. As any one of my five What must it have felt like to him, specializing daughters would have done, she took my hand, in plastic surgery, knowing what he did about I think crying. Her love palpable, she was reality facial and head injuries? How frightened was he? but not reality. It would be weeks before I could He’d been my pal, my partner on the tennis court. reenter myself, let alone my world. Where I was, He loved our daughter and their children. I’d hap- there was no such thing as emotion. Seven months pily helped pay his medical school expenses, in awe later I would write: of his photographic memory. We’d planned to write To you nothing here is immediate, crucial, in a mystery novel about a bum patient incomprendibly the least attractive wanting his fingerprints changed. Jim turned on No expecting beyond hours of X-rays, stitches, the flashers and drove ninety miles an hour to his shots, ice. hospital, almost hoping for a patrolman. All that time returning, you vague about famil- Outside of Emergency, attendants pushed here, iar hands, there testing reflexes, asking questions of Jim, of Tangled in your head, the blow to trace, surely me. They put a collar on my neck, laid me on a someone else’s story. stretcher, and rushed me to X-ray. I felt nothing as I never cried. I was not afraid. I felt nothing, not doctors tried to clean glass out of my eye. Only dis- even great pain. Someone else occupied my skin. tance and almost indifference. Windshield splin- ters covered me. My smashed sunglasses were in It would be seven months before I could read or put my eye as well. What had hit me—that “spear from my head down, seven months until the reality of a the gods”—was the L-shaped rod that holds a mud future coming to pick me up and carry me home. flap on a rig of two or three trailers with up to But it took others to tell me what had happened. eighteen wheels. Later, Jim, the scientist, calculated I had never in my life before been a victim to the force of the blow when the three-foot rod violence. What must it have done to a psyche so flipped up from the freeway and through the wind- preserved in loving-kindness to be smashed by a shield: six to eight pounds of iron moving toward totally chance blow, to come so close to death and us at fourteen miles per hour to collide with our yet be saved, to be put back together in essentially windshield moving at sixty-five miles per hour. Sev- the same fashion as before, and yet have stretched eral hundred joules of energy, Jim said, dissipated and screwed and pounded into that same head so

17 AML Annual 2004 much that wasn’t there before? How must it be, where I still knew every castor bean and crack in I wondered, for people who are bludgeoned time the pavement, where my family, of no age as their after time by not only chance, but circumstance? forever selves, were waiting for me, a total envelop- I didn’t tell Rachel Jeraldine McFarlane, whom ing of time, upstairs and down, everywhere alive as I had met a few months before, about the accident. the long past must be for the very old who can The February before that June, a friend had rec- remember so far back but little from today. Except ommended Rachel to “read my energy.” Full of that today was there too, illuminated softly, every- humor, insight, and original metaphors, young as thing softly, my heaven, the family at the table the one of my daughters. I found Rachel had astonish- way we always sat: Father, Gill, Mother, me, Grandma ing gifts. After the disastrous trip in August, curi- at the end opposite Father, on the other side, ous about my slow healing, I went to her for another Homer, Richard. Three gone, four still here. As I’d reading. At this point, there were no outward signs said in one of those peace poems about my Aunt of my smashed face. After the swelling subsided, Edna, only survivor of her generation, everywhere and I frequently applied liquid vitamin E, the scar is now a dead and a living place. Then I was awake, was barely visible. crying, my tears welling and spilling in a joy Yet Rachel said, “You are still you, but pastel, beyond joy, everything and everyone utterly dear, pale. And so sad. You are walking very lightly on the accessible, totally there. But I was not separated from earth. You have been to the place of knowing, and now—I was the true me again, in my childness, my you have come back to do something. You have made freedom and rightness, effortless the being. a promise—to tell us about that place of knowing. My journal said I went back and back to it Until you can do it, the sadness will be there.” early and late that morning, held, freed, not want- Why should I be sad? I was alive. I was free of ing to leave wherever I was. Crying. So strange for the great fear of dying that pursues us all. But now me. Yet that day the only natural thing. I did not want I had the displacement of surviving and not under- to surface. I could hold to any part of the vision, let standing why. But she was right. I could remember it play back and forth. I was a cloud, formless, in having forgotten something. I had only the grey- motion but without a road or path, only the sky to ness of no desire, the absentness, the loss of wonder. float across. Yet, because I could not read or jiggle in activity The experience was far beyond ecstasy or joy or as I always had, I began to hear some inner music even bliss. And I brought back that intuited word— that I had been too busy most of the time to let childness—not childlike or childish, but childness. play. It was all there, waiting to be reconnected. And not a dream. I remember the feeling of child- The thought of making those connections did not ness when I see a new baby at a mother’s breast or frighten me. Besides, I began to know what else a two-year-old like our final grandchild, Emma, was there—the other place where beyond my born on my birthday, climbing adroitly into her prayers I council with my guides, my departed car seat and saying to her two brothers and the rest dears, in the time and space where I had made the of us adults in the van, “Hey guys, I’m happy!” Yes. decision to return. To a child everything is new, full of wonder that Recorded in my journal in January, before I gives rise to astonishment. Being is simply being, could read, the knowing. One morning as I awoke without dictum or expectation. I knew I had been in that place where I had gone in Four months after my visit to that other exis- the accident. The date of what would be the start tence, a poem came out of sleep explaining what of my revelation was 1/12/87—the address of my had happened. It happened again between sleep and childhood home where I’d lived from the time I waking in that place Tibetans call lucid dreaming. was born until, at age twenty-five, I went away to Without changing a syllable, I wrote on the pad be married. It was less a dream than an awaking beside my bed what had been a mystery until that to the child life I had known at 1287 Crystal Avenue, gift from the place of knowing.

18 The Place of Knowing

Having Died From even the light am I detached Out of fhe Night: Childness It takes me in only Till “love calls me to More than a state of being The things of this world.” A new being Suffused in light The Richard Wilbur quote came out of a long-ago Whatever is there like being held response to his line. I knew much that I hadn’t In Father’s arms known before. The poem had made it explicit. Way beyond Safe Still, it took another friend, Sonla Gernes— Carried asleep poet, former nun, novelist, head of English at From one quiet to another Notre Dame—to speak my change outright. She had been on a Fulbright in New Zealand and, All of it a heartbeat catching up, I told her of my accident. She was the Back back back the coming together first ever to actually say what had happened to me. Carried in a dark velvet womb “But of course I understand,” she said. “You died.” Accepting Off and on, I got used to the idea. Was death Floating from density Into light what Rachel meant by “going to the place of know- ing”? Was death why I was so profoundly altered? This is only the beginning Out of the night, another poem told me: Whatever that is I like the others of no age Was a Woman Willing for once to wait Was a woman a two- Knowing in time part woman played as if Only the exquisite balance she wasn’t all she was Of everywhere at once who passed the middle Saying You are here of the grave running Come, you of no name into herself trying to round That Emma fits corners she got smaller Who hears and answers or was it bigger and had The answers trouble telling anyone she had disappeared. Childness knows no blame Only the lightness of being Little by little, I sensed my role, my promise: to In your childness tell about knowing about the place of ultimate know- Nothing will be lost ing that I had the privilege of visiting. It’s about Though all is right PASSING THE PORTALS, yes, about a new defini- In the place of no sides at all tion of my believing—from my grandma’s death, Of return without going away “Angel, Angel, snowy Angel, spread your wings Know this that Time is Life and fly”; to Helen Keller’s teaching me about see- Enclave born to other enclaves ing without seeing, hearing without hearing, going by feel toward something holy; to seeing a comet As I woke still scribbling the poem without that no one else could see. About supposing and punctuation, reality began to take hold. The writ- then knowing that Joseph saw the vision, God, the ing was beginning to come from me rather from angel; to being carried from a velvet womb into some other informing. The poem became mine to the Light of Childness; to T. S. Eliot’s explain my return: We shall not cease from exploring Every step of the weaning and the end of all our exploration Still heavy on my pillow shall be to arrive where we began The joy is lifted with me. And to know that place for the first time.

19 AML Annual 2004

Three kinds of knowing. All explored through writing. All found in my Place of Knowing like a photograph coming out of developing fluid—at first murky, then with an edge appearing here, a detail there, until finally when the book is finished, the clear picture of my death and my heaven. My believing? My third kind of knowing? That is my Mormonism with all my pillars still intact and with the roof blown blessedly off the structure to reveal a whole skyful of stars. Yes, ineffable. Perhaps the fourth kind of knowing—that heaven is as per- sonal as breath, as inviting as birdsong, as real as any fact or acquaintance or ineffable discovery. It is what waits like an angel or a vision or a heavenly body, like an answer to a prayer:

The Wick and the Flame Re-Entry Back from incandescence, flame full, wick high, to snuff or lower brightness to accommodate the crossing of a sill from ultimate to less, bewildered pulses run Amoco: Head shoulders soul toes fingers feeling for a place to turn the screw that separates bright then from now: a brilliant having been full of mystery and surprise from inner feasting back to the wan approval of sameness in syllables and certainties of wicks long settled in the obvious unfanned by air that stirs sweet night like fantasies and rapture made holy by the shining elsewhere hovering out of sight. Because I always know:

20 The Place of Knowing

Epilogue from Psalm 139 O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether ...

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be tight about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou has covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

21 The Tragedy of Brigham City: How a Film about Morality Becomes Immoral

Michael Minch

suspect that in writing, directing, and portray- of the community—and his pregnant wife and her Iing the main character in his film Brigham City, child still in the community. How will she be received Richard Dutcher wanted to make a movie about by this community that so deeply values families the moral fabric of a community of faith. It seems and valorizes their cohesiveness? Will his guilt stain clear that this is the principal theme of the film. In her too? what I take to be the core scene of the film, because Well, I have signaled my take on this film, but it crystalizes the film’s purpose, an older member I will explicate my exegesis of it a bit further before and former sheriff of the community of Brigham, turning to a brief consideration of what a film about Utah, states, “The world’s gonna drag us in whether morality requires by way of recognizing what moral- we like it or not. See, what we got here is a para- ity is. Throughout the film, the good versus evil, dise, and nothing attracts a serpent like paradise.” light versus dark dialogue is so frequent, obvious, This is an allusion, of course, to the story of the Fall and without sophistication, that there would be in Genesis 3, but it’s also an allusion to the film’s a comical element to it, except that since this isn’t a thematic dialectic: paradise is, well, paradise— Simpsons episode and the film is so earnest, it comes until evil crawls in undetected from the outside— off as hubris and self-righteousness. Very early in and then things change as evil begins to make its the film, the main character, played by Dutcher, the mark. A pure community thus becomes harmed town’s sheriff, a man who is also a bishop of one of and changed, innocence is lost, as an evil one from the community’s wards, speaks of the “real world” outside makes his way into the community. Yes, and the “outside world.” He says, “I’m sick of it, indeed, here is an echo of our first parent’s corrup- the murders [and other crimes]. . . . Here’s all I care tion, and a connection made between the innocence about,” he says, referring to the paradise of Brigham. of God’s children before sin and the innocence of Soon, the film takes us to a construction site the Mormon community of Brigham. where several men from elsewhere are a part of the But, while the film is putatively about, intends construction crew building homes in a new devel- to be about, the moral character of a religious com- opment. One of them literally shouts from a roof- munity, it actually sends a different message to those top about all the “churches” he sees around him who pay attention. A film that wants to be about (misidentifying the ward buildings about which he a strong moral community is a film that becomes speaking). He then shouts that where he is from subverted by itself. Thus, this movie becomes tragic there are “taverns on every corner and whorehouses through the unintended irony it offers. Interestingly, in between!” Of course, this is not likely an accu- the film ends near to where it might more prof- rate characterization of any community in America, itably begin—with the death of a guilty man who but it serves Dutcher’s purpose to paint the corrupt is a part of the community, yet perhaps not a part versus pure characterization he intends. Before long,

23 AML Annual 2004 we find the sheriff worried about what outsiders the United States should deter them. During the might bring into his community, and he explains search, there’s the scene in which a member of to his young deputy, “I’m just trying to keep things Wes’s ward is found to have pornography hidden reigned in.” When the first dead body is found, in a closet in his home. The music builds, suspense a professional from Provo is called in. He tells the is created such that we might anticipate that this is sheriff that he “never expected to make [such] a the murderer, but we find, not clues to murder, but business trip to Brigham.” In response to this bloody instead, porn. This guilt-ridden man proclaims that circumstance, the sheriff, named Wes Clayton, tells he had meant to confess his sins to Wes, as his his deputy, a young man relatively new to the com- bishop, and he begs Wes to keep this to himself, munity, “This doesn’t have anything to do with our stating, “I think I would die if anyone knew.” When town . . . people don’t even lock their doors in the character of Stu buys cigarettes shortly before our town—and I don’t want them to start. . . . being murdered, the clerk gives him a hard time, Terry, you’re not even going to talk to your wife tries to dissuade him and tells him she’ll tell the about this.” Indeed, the sheriff soon tells us that bishop. Stu lets her know he’ll tell the bishop him- until now, Brigham had never had a murder. self, because he always confesses his sins to Wes. When a couple of FBI agents arrive in Brigham, The sheriff’s secretary is engaged and her fiancé Dutcher makes sure they stand out—they’re always takes her to his house because he’s worried after dressed formally, and in black. They represent three victims have been killed. As they are driving another instance of “the other,” outsiders who don’t to his place, their conversation assures us that they understand this unique community of true faith. have no intention of sleeping together. Even the In fact a relationship is created throughout the continual look of astonishment and admiration on movie between Wes and one of the agents, who is, the face of Meredith, one of the FBI agents, is meant predictably, from Manhatten, so as to continually to tell us constantly of the unique goodness of develop this theme. In a dialogue between them, these people she has encountered. When Wes gets he assumes that she thinks these rural Mormons are the idea to dust the mug Terry has used, for finger- naive to the world. So he then has the opportunity prints, it is an answer to prayer, so we are to know to tell her that her kind of people are naive as well, that God has led the bishop and sheriff to the evil and, of course, naive about more important mat- perpetrator. Lastly, there is the penultimate scene, ters—spiritual matters. during which Wes confronts Terry, having discov- While there is only one dead body, and the ered him as the killer. Speaking of his trusting assumption is that an outsider killed the victim, acceptance of Terry, he says “It couldn’t have hap- Wes can claim that “all is well” in Brigham, and the pened anywhere but a place like this.” Terry first sacrament meeting scene presented to us has responds, “You brought the wolf right into the cen- the congregation singing these very words from a ter of the flock.” well-known hymn, “all is well.” Yet, after a second I have by now, I hope, made this theme of good victim, and the former sheriff, Stu, has also been versus evil, light versus dark, innocence versus cor- killed, Wes asks his deputy with anger, “Have ruption, clear. It is, as I said, the principal theme enough of the real world, Terry?!” of the movie. But this heavy-handedness does not There are a great many indicators of the good work. As I said, the film is clearly meant to be about versus evil theme. A few more include the willing- a moral community, but we actually get a different ness of the sheriff, who is, of course, the com- message about morality other than the one intended. munity’s keeper of the law, to break the law, by John-Charles Duffy has rightly noted this portrayal ordering the men of his ward to search every home of white and blackness that Dutcher gives us.1 But in Brigham even by force and without warrants, if the moral world in which we live is not simply necessary. So righteous is their cause, such is their white and black. The moral simplicity and clarity goodness, that not even the constitutional law of that Dutcher gives us is an illusion, a mythology.

24 The Tragedy of Brigham City: How a Film about Morality Becomes Immoral

We do not live in such a Manichean world. And It is extraordinarily difficult to think about something this film should know, but doesn’t, is morality without recourse to utilization of moral that the Bible itself—particularly Jesus and Paul— rules. We order our moral lives, rather intuitively, warns us often against this kind of either/or view of by way of rules. Further, we of course prioritize these sinfulness. That we simply are either holy or evil is rules, making a hierarchy out of them, so that when nonbiblical in the extreme and is an instance of the they come into conflict we can negotiate our way very sin of pride and self-righteousness that is so by knowing which rules trump which other rules. often and strongly condemned in the Bible. But this common and powerful feature of moral The characters of this film who display norma- life has its dangers. One of them is that we can be tive morality are nearly devoid of any self-doubt or seduced into a reductionism whereby we think of humility. They, and especially the bishop and sheriff, morality in toto as an assemblage of rules. But rules who is the film’s embodiment of spirituality, law, are abstractions of conclusions related to practices and morality, are largely oblivious to the complex- and historical contingencies that allow us to iden- ity of the circumstances in which they find them- tify certain things as goods. That is, rules are rough- selves. I am not speaking of any kind of technical and-ready means to identify and protect goods and complexity, but moral complexity. Two scenes come practices. Further, rules are by definition reduc- to mind in which an awareness of moral weakness tionistic, in that while they draw us to other rules; seems present. The first is when Wes recalls how they do not contain the power to allow us to leap when he was young he killed a rabbit and enjoyed beyond them, to see well what it is they are all it, and he tells Terry that he still possesses some about. Rules tend to point to other rules, but in the measure of a “taste for killing.” And then, of course, end, what we need to know is where the rules come we see him do just that at the end of the film, when from. Rules are reminders and signifiers, valuable it seems he could have kept Terry from reassem- but insufficient. bling the gun he was cleaning and perhaps kept Another danger of morality reduced to rules from killing him. But then, when that fatal shot is that this paradigm carries the promise of self- takes place, it seems the film wants us to believe it justification and therefore self-righteousness, just was justified and inevitable (an allusion to the doc- as it carries the means to critique and condemn trine of “blood atonement”?). The second scene is ourselves and others. All of this is to say that the second sacrament meeting episode in which morality as rules simplifies what morality is and Wes refuses the sacrament (which is a reflection of does so in ways which are inevitably morally dan- his sense of moral and spiritual impurity). The film gerous. Moral rules, if they are appreciated in a presents us with a vision of moral simplicity that nonreductivist manner, can help point beyond Dutcher would have us believe, it seems, is a moral themselves to a place where we can more nearly clarity. But clarity means seeing accurately; it is dif- approach a more comprehensive understanding of ferent from simplicity. In respect to morality, sim- morality. It is easy and understandable that people plicity becomes mere moralism. fall back into, or fail to escape morality as rules; but I will say something now about what morality this reality only deepens the danger. Morality is is and what morality requires us to see. It will be all more complicated, more ambiguous, and more the clearer to us, then, what this film doesn’t see. interesting than a system of rules—however com- I will end by describing two lost opportunities plicated any such system. So the first thing to note missed by this film—how it could have been the is that morality does not properly or coherently moral film it wants to be. First, then, a few words reduce to rules; it is not only insufficient, but dan- about morality. My fundamental point is that gerous when morality is treated as though it is pre- Brigham City is an exercise in moralism, which, cisely the right configuration of rules. in turn, is a kind of propaganda. Let me briefly Behind, above, or below the rules we find deeper explain what I mean. and richer dimensions of morality. Rules imply that

25 AML Annual 2004 morality is analytical, but, in fact, morality is ana- human being, we discover, among other things, that logical. Let me briefly sketch out what I mean. The we are limited and thus incomplete. Any system of understanding of a moral rule (or any kind of rule) morality that ignores our limitations is incoherent is not logically prior to some comprehension of and unsustainable. Whenever we conceive of or cases to which the rule may or may not apply. We make moral claims, such that we ought to do this do not begin with a rule, which is grasped in some or that, we tacitly acknowledge some limitations. analytical way and then apply the rule. On the “Ought” judgments reflect shortcomings and fail- contrary, in order to even understand a rule, we ures by definition. This means that our moral reflec- must begin with a set of cases that are recognized as tions need to develop in relation to assumptions unproblematic instances of that rule and compare and understandings about the limits of, and flaws them to a set of cases in which it is generally recog- in, our moral capacities and capabilities.6 As Hilary nized that the rule does not apply. Furthermore, as Putnam observes, moral rules are meant to function, Wittgenstein reminds us, linguistic interpretations in part, to safeguard our consciences and to protect of a rule are but approximations of the meaning of us from our own selfishness and self-deception.7 the rule, and the meaning of the rule is adequately It is the case, for example, that we cannot live lives expressed only in intelligent action.2 As we learn altogether free from harming others, and any help- from both Aristotle and Aquinas, we cannot get to ful account of morality will need to see this for the the point where we recognize what morality is per kinds of reasons I’ve been sketching. As Aristotle se, and then offer an analytic account of morality taught us, living a moral life not only cannot reduce on that basis, because there is no such thing as an to rules but is an exceedingly difficult thing to do. “essence of morality,” because morality is, at least This insight is shared by the New Testament. in part, a complex social institution with a very “Even in those instances in which we very much long history. A proper moral theory, we might say, want to do the right thing, it can be hard, indeed, must be nontheoretical (and so some, like Bernard sometimes it will be impossible, to know what the Williams, are referred to as moral “anti-theorists”).3 right thing is to do.”8 So, as with rules, highly abstract conceptions I offer this brief sketch of moral theory and its of goodness and obligation can be understood only necessary, analogical relationship to behavior or through apprehension of the sorts of cases that we action, because the rule-bound ethos, culture, and take to exemplify such concepts. This means that theology that permeates Brigham City is one of the meanings of moral concepts must be inherently problems the film possesses. Indeed, it is at the heart linked to the kinds of actions that exemplify the of the film’s fundamental flaw. The film is a study concepts and, in the first place, to immoral actions. in moralism but seems to know little about morality. There must be a kind of unity proper to the con- Moral theory, philosophically but, especially, theo- cept of morality, of course, and this unity must be logically grounded, knows something about human a unity proper to concepts—as they actually emerge, complicity in immorality, the moral blindness of the develop, and function in natural languages. Again, religious, the self-righteousness of the devout, the self- the unity of a concept of morality cannot derive justification of those who live by law rather than from a priori analysis; and so, again, morality is grace. As I think is clear, the good citizens of Brigham analogical rather than analytical.4 are presented as moral examplars, as members of a Everything I’ve said so far leads us to see that morally exemplary community. But richly philo- whatever it is we say about morality has everything sophical reflection, to say nothing of biblical to do with what it means to be a human being. hermeneutics, knows such moral comfort to rest Indeed, for Aquinas, what he calls human action is upon illusion, hubris, and pride, which is to say, by definition moral action (not all things humans sin. Charles Pinches writes in his book Theology do is “human” action, however, e.g., scratching and Action: After Theory in Christian Ethics, “Were one’s nose).5 When we consider what it is to be a we interested here in apologetics, the point could

26 The Tragedy of Brigham City: How a Film about Morality Becomes Immoral be made that the richness of a community’s moral people (at least on some occasions), and he’s mar- vocabulary could be a strong reason to consider the ried to a Mormon woman, apparently raising their claims that community makes, and that its philoso- child in the faith. He’s certainly accepted as a mem- phers and theologians articulate and refine, about ber of the community. Does acceptance as a member ultimate matters such as the nature of God, the of a community not count for membership in a world, and human life within it.”9 Dutcher certainly community? In short, we have a number of reasons seems to have intended that Brigham City would be to locate him as a genuine part of this community; a vehicle that would draw persons to Mormonism except, of course, he is a murderer, and the film’s for reasons like those Pinches offers. But I suggest message is that no murderer can be a part of this that persons paying close attention to this film community. would find the moral vocabulary of the commu- But consider this question: what community nity in this film unsatisfactory, thin, unappealing, would claim murderers to be ordinary members (other and perhaps even offensive. than a community of murderers)? In other words, I mentioned previously that moralism reduces if we simply describe community as “those who to propaganda, and that therefore this film is a never commit these immoral acts,” while present- kind of propaganda. “Propaganda” always takes on ing a list of such acts, we have left many thousands a deeply negative connotation, but this is unneces- or millions of people outside of communities, because sary. Let’s be clear about what propaganda is and all communities, normatively, disenfranchise, mar- the way I am using the word, which is one of its lit- ginalize, stigmatize, and punish those who commit eral meanings. Propaganda is the organized dis- such acts. But we know that all people do, in fact, semination of information, the purpose of which is belong to communities. Few of us were raised by to inform. The information need not be negative wolves and grew up without human contact. To be or untrue. Moralism is the use of moral rules, con- human is to be embedded in communities of vari- ventions, and institutions so as to serve a purpose ous kinds. Although not all communities are the beyond morality itself. Moralism is a conventional- same, morally or otherwise, only a community of ism. Moralism is moral language put in service by murderers would happily claim a murderer as a a community to help shape attitudes toward that member. So, the claim that “a murderer, by defini- community. This is what Brigham City intends to tion, cannot be a member of this community” seems do. Morality is also a social institution, as I said far too easy. Tragically enough, murderers do live in before, but its purpose is not merely to shape atti- our communities—all of our communities. Again, tudes on behalf of a community (Aristotle notwith- this is another way that Dutcher wants to portray standing). Moralism trades in rules for this purpose; “his” community that seems less than even-handed, morality sees beyond rules and calls our own righ- if you will. teousness into question, as well as that of others. But more importantly, in respect to the film, I mentioned that there were two missed oppor- the very question I am raising is one with which the tunities in this film, if the film’s purpose is to por- film might have wrestled in order to be a richer tray a moral community. Let me now explain. First, expression of art and moral inquiry. What is a the question permeates Brigham City, Is Terry a community, after all? How do we know who’s in part of this community or an imposter? The film and who’s out? What does a person have to do to shows him to be an imposter, a wolf in sheep’s cloth- be a nonmember? And why? And, if we don’t know ing, someone pretending to be somebody else. But about a person’s thoughts, motivations, intentions, why is this the way we must see Terry? Aren’t there and actions—and of course none of us know all of reasons for understanding him as part of the com- these things about anyone—how can we determine munity in fact, not merely in appearance? He’s a who is in our community? If a community as strong regular, consistent participant in the community’s as the one portrayed in this film has the power to life, he works as a deputy sheriff, serving these transform a person (e.g., because it embodies the

27 AML Annual 2004 gospel), why wasn’t Terry transformed? These are NOTES the moral questions the film could have contem- 1. John-Charles Duffy, “Serpents in Our Midst: plated, but the opportunity was missed because the What Brigham City Tells Us about Ourselves,” Irrean- film wanted to present a moralistic portrayal rather tum 4.1 (Spring 2002): 14–20. than a moral inquiry. 2. Jean Porter, Moral Action and Christian Ethics Second, at the film’s end, Terry is killed after he (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 35. See is identified by the bishop and sheriff, Wes, as the Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3rd ed., murderer who is being sought. Terry leaves a pregnant trans. Elizabeth Anscombe (New York: MacMillan, 1958), wife and a child. Given the importance of marriage no. 198, p. 80. Cf. Garrett Barden, After Principles (Notre and family, the close, intimate, and eternal relation- Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). ships Mormon doctrine teaches, what we would 3. Porter, 45. See Bernard Williams, Ethics and the now want to know is how will Terry’s widow be Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University treated by this community? Will she be marginal- Press, 1985). Cf. Raimond Gaita, A Common Human- ity: Thinking about Love and Truth and Justice (New ized as though she shared somewhat in her husband’s York: Routledge, 2000). guilt, or at least because she should have known 4. Porter, 46–48. See also Julius Kovesi, Moral him better? Will she be accepted with compassion Notions (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967). and love? This is where the film ends, but the oppor- 5. This part of Thomas’s moral theory/theology is tunity missed is the opportunity to show a moral valuably discussed by Charles R. Pinches, Theology and community embracing and loving a sister, as well Action: After Theory in Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: as wrestling with how to embrace, or even if to William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002). embrace such a woman. This would make a more 6. Porter, 70, 74. deeply textured film about a real moral community. 7. Hilary Putnam, “Taking Rules Seriously,” in Brigham City is a film brimming with great Realism with a Human Face, ed. James Conant (Cam- potential. It might have learned from other films bridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 193–200. 8. Ibid., 83. such as Witness, Places in the Heart, and The Apostle10 9. Pinches, 160. about what might more carefully be said about 10. In The Apostle, we can, for example, come to religious communities and their moral lives. But believe that the preacher/evangelist portrayed by this film capitulated to mere moralism and self- Robert Duvall can be both a murderer and an honest righteousness. It became a kind of propaganda, believer who has known God’s grace, love, forgiveness, while its potential to be a film about morality went and transformation; he is a man who shares the gospel unrealized. out of this integrity and trust.

28 The Novelization of Brigham City: An Odyssey

Marilyn Brown

righam City, Utah, is a real town with real people in the community who stay focused on Bpeople getting up in the morning, brushing coming together as one, caring for each other, and their teeth, going to work. People in Brigham City sharing a similar language, and communion. We come home and have dinner—sometimes with call this a “church.” From the beginning people someone they love. Then they may watch a little have realized the benefit of this type of organi- TV and go to bed. zation. The Mormons are dedicated to theirs. Of I’ve just described life in Brigham City. Actu- course I’m an insider, but as a whole, the Mormon ally, I’ve described life in America. And perhaps— ethos thoroughly impresses me. Had I been born of course with the exception of the TV—life in in another era, in another place, I might have been the world. The main variable is . . . having dinner talking about communing with Buddhists. But I’m with someone you love or, in other words, sharing a Mormon and I am so grateful to have become a communion. part of this body I have come to love. And so the Brigham City, the film, is not about a specific message of religion as a whole, and ours in particu- place. (One irate Utah citizen wouldn’t go to see it lar, is atonement, communion, and how we come to because it wasn’t filmed in Brigham City, but in partake of it. Mapleton and Springville.) But it is a remarkable And now, in this new era of communion, the representation of life in any place, and its message talented artist, Richard Dutcher, has been able to is sharing communion. At last our Mormon ethos is tell us a powerful story which is not only about blessed with an artist who has been able to create atonement, but effects an atonement. It doesn’t use an archetype, a story that speaks volumes about all the word atonement. It doesn’t need any preaching of humankind, especially about communion and in it at all. In the great tradition of all storytellers, how we come to it, or atonement, if you will—which Dutcher is able to create identifiable characters is the entire overwhelming goal of our Father. whose quest to find communion reminds us of our If I were an authority figure who wanted to own. The story serves as a vehicle whereby those gather his children to him as a hen gathers her who partake of it—like the symbolic sacrament— chickens, so that they—as one—would be able to reach greater understanding and love. The film share dinner or life together as they commune with invests us in the essence of life: finding comfort in one another, I’d certainly be impressed to do exactly each other when the terrors both outside and inside as the Father has done. From a position of author- hover so near. ity, though He is unable to come Himself, He sent It is no secret that we cannot fully protect our- His eldest and most trusted son. He sends prophets selves from evil. In their criticism of Brigham City, to write inspiring words, to keep us on track. And Michael Minch and John-Charles Duffy point out He encourages His servants to organize a body of that righteous behavior is tainted with the evil of

29 AML Annual 2004 pride. There is no way we can escape it. Michael conceptual paradise; it’s a wake-up call that the par- will try to convince you that the behavior in adise we’ve built for ourselves is inadequate to the Brigham City, tainted by pride, thus makes the film challenges of our time. It doesn’t confirm our social immoral. I was ready to read him the riot act, when insulation as a good thing; it deconstructs it.” he assured me he was just using that word in his Scott’s brilliant observation of Dutcher’s eloquent title to stir us up. He makes us think about our entreaty is indeed timely today! pride, but he rests his argument on some weak sup- So, Brigham City is a wake-up call—that there positions. One, that Dutcher was trying to make a are bad things going on. There are terrible prob- movie about the moral fabric of a community of lems in our society. And the question is, Are we faith. He also supposes that the community is ready to face these things? My thoughts also go to going to be mean to April after Terry’s death! His the Bush administration at the present time. There arguments are similar to John-Charles Duffy’s objec- is a viper’s nest in the world. If you stir it up, you tion that the film simplifies behavior into black will get hurt. There is a price for action. But there and white, and the white sit pridefully in judgment is also a price for inaction. The question is, Which upon the dark. Like all contrary points of view, these will cost more? two give us fodder on which to hone the skills of When Richard Dutcher first asked me to write our thought processes. In other words, they wake the sequel to Brigham City, Kirtland County, he us up and keep us alert. There is “opposition in all wanted a romance. He specifically said he didn’t things.” need to see “any more” done with Brigham City. But the film Brigham City is not a simplistic Sadly, I did get a slight impression from our con- piece of work that can be labeled immoral. Scott versation that some audience responses to this dark Parkin offers three different readings of the film. film about a killer, and the fact that the market did The first is the basic story—that evil enters para- not recover the costs, gave him the feeling that he dise and destroys innocence. If the character speeches wanted to continue with something in a lighter vein. are taken as literally true on this level, pride may be But as I thought about his invitation for the seen in them. Scott also offers the interpretation next few months, I couldn’t get it out of my head that the story is about Wes, and his own prideful that I really ought to begin with Brigham City. There desperation to “believe in a paradise he fears may were too many interesting questions that needed to not be possible.” Thus he leads himself “into will- be answered in the novel before I could write the ful blindness and the ultimate destruction of his sequel he had in mind. Brigham City without a own hope.” There is obviously some of both of doubt was, in my opinion, as good as, or better these interpretations in Brigham City. Yet another than God’s Army, which he had allowed to be nov- message of the film is Scott’s dictum “that a com- elized. And I heartily feel Brigham City is the best munity based on faith can not only face evil and of the total rash of Mormon films now on the mar- overcome evil, but can expand its own power and ket, as well as the one that found the most favorable vision to enable hope in the face of hopelessness. national distribution. And now we are learning that [These people of Brigham City] are able to forgive it is a hit in the foreign markets! I have always had the real and terrible errors made by Wes yet still a feeling—and still do—that this film is truly a classic. embrace him with real love and compassion” As time passed, critics of Brigham City in (Parkin, email, 3 February 2003.) Scott argues Irreantum and the AML-List began to support my strongly against Minch’s view that Dutcher was views. Though a few of them such as John-Charles trying to portray a moral society. He points out that Duffy and now Michael Minch were willing to the filmmaker practically screams at the audience come down hard on the film as a simplistic repre- to see “how this community has failed itself by sentation of pride in the Mormon culture, illus- becoming complacent. . . . Brigham City is not a trating the “Mormon inability to create complex how-to manual or travel brochure for some Mormon scenarios” (Duffy, 14–20), there were some strong

30 The Novelizaion of Brigham City: An Odyssey voices for its artistry. I have already quoted Scott disturbing film partly because as benign as Terry Parkin, who in another comment noted that the story appears to the audience in the beginning, the end is “unflinching in depicting ugly experience . . . but of the film still seems so believable. that [it] still assumes both hope and possible redemp- So, the prospect of writing the novel of Brigham tion.” Michael Martindale champions the film’s City launched me into careful research. As much as complexity by pointing out that it “addresses a theo- the doctrines of the Church have concentrated on logical issue that is at the root of the Goods and atonement and how we come to it, I knew there was Bads of Mormon Culture. . . . We humans MUST another side of the picture—the doctrines of destruc- eat the forbidden fruit, leave the Garden of Eden tion and how any man—even men of good inten- and live in a fallen world.” He concludes with tions—may come to utter darkness. As I discovered “I think Brigham City was a very very good film . . . what I thought might be the background and inner [which] succeeded enough and . . . generated a buzz character of Terry, I came to see the film as a parallel and lit the creative fires under a . . . lot of people” study of repentance for two men, Wes and Terry. (Martindale, AML-LIST, 28 September 2002). What I discovered was that the goals for both were Rob Lauer notices that “the very fact that Brigham atonement. Both, on two different levels, yearn in City supposedly upset so many “good” Latter-day similar ways to repent, to eschew the destructive Saints (?!!!) while inspiring and moving so many forces so they may experience communion, or others, is in itself a testimony to the power of atonement, the driving force of men’s lives. [Dutcher’s] art.” Also, Lauer states that Dutcher My first question was, How had Terry Woodruff and his associates have created “the ONLY films that been able to fall so far off the narrow way? What have so far been regarded by anyone outside our were the early destructive choices he had made LDS community as serious art” (Lauer, AML-LIST, that had clouded his vision so much? Through my 30 November 2002). research, I discovered that Terry’s choices were These comments—and more—speak incon- embedded in the same driving force of every man’s testably to me that Brigham City is a powerful tour psyche—the need for love. Though as a child, he de force with a complex theme inviting exhaustive desired to belong, to experience communion or discussion. There were several questions I wanted atonement, the way he sought it was through to answer before I wrote Kirtland County. I asked something he had learned from an abusive adult: Richard for permission to write a novel about sexual gratification. After he had developed a taste Brigham City. When he graciously said yes, I began for this way of belonging, he developed a habit, my quest to solve some enigmas. and finally an addiction. He allowed the addiction The killer, Terry Woodruff, had always posed a to control him. problem to me in the film. It had always seemed I carefully studied some serial killers—notably (I think I’m one of those “proud” Mormons) un- clever ones, like Ted Bundy. And I discovered their realistic to me that such an apparently good mem- needs and desires to be fueled in childhood by the ber of the Church—a family man with a career in irresponsibility of adults. I discovered that in these law enforcement—could have committed such darkest of killers there had been for a time a strong horrendous acts as he had committed. (Michael drive for repentance, for living a normal life and Minch asks, “Why wasn’t he transformed?”) Terry changing their behavior forever, just as Terry pleads was married to a nice young woman. They had one at the end of the film, “I don’t know why I can’t child and a baby on the way. Yes, he was an excel- stop . . . I . . . I’ve tried . . . so hard . . . to be good” lent marksman, it’s true—a fact which might have (Dutcher, 91). I also discovered that it is entirely given us a clue to something if we’d asked the ques- possible for a dangerously addicted person like Terry, tion, How did he get to be such a crack shot? How- who—even though he yearns for normalcy—to come ever, in other scenes of the film, we see him playing into a community as a wolf in lamb’s clothing. And with his son, showing interest in his wife. It was a that the havoc he might be capable of wreaking

31 AML Annual 2004 would be horrific. Our national laws admit the always encroach. A trusting community may embrace likelihood of this panorama, now insisting that vipers without knowing they do so. There is no the presence of sex offenders be disclosed in their defense against deceivers. It is the price of free new neighborhoods. agency in a free society. How much can a society Brigham City got many things right, but one of and its justice system be expected to prevent terror? them is that there is usually a record. Wes knew the How many criminals look like normal wonderful killer was not the man who had tampered with people, yet cannot seem to undo their addictions? narcotics. Wes was aware there would be a record In a loving, accepting way, Sheriff Wes Clayton of sexual abuse, that such criminal action begins as not only supports and puts his arms around Terry something the perpetrator believes is harmless and Woodruff but offers him a job as deputy officer to escalates to a serious state. One of the observations enforce the law. Wes’s “sin” is trust. And Terry sur- I have made in today’s society is that the begin- vives by deceit. He tries to erase his past. He takes nings of the road to serious sexual addiction and up construction work in a new obscure town, mar- crime is now pushed down children’s throats. The ries, and eventually endears himself to the sheriff. visual images of sex presented on every hand to The film does its job very well. It is the novel- children as “love” are confusing. To point out the ist’s job to give Terry a background, telling how he fallacy that “sex” does not equate with atonement became a rapist, why he served four years for an is definitely a soapbox on which I have long wanted early misdemeanor, and then how he became addicted to stand and shout. As I novelist, I would have the to killing his victims. It is then just as important to responsibility to create and make believable Terry’s give Wes Clayton a background, telling how he record. I am portraying Terry as a Mormon boy became trusting and loving, a communal saint who abused by his stepfather and introduced to pornog- follows his heart and does not search for hard and raphy. The addiction of pornography is truly one cold records. He allows himself to be deceived because of the most impossible to remove. he wants to believe in paradise. He wants to trust. Next, I invented an entire background of rea- But he discovers he must face evil. sons that Terry allowed his sexual addiction to I was impressed with a statement Harlow Clark descend into murder. His sin in Snowflake is rape. made in Irreantum about Bela Petsco’s Nothing Very But as he leaves Snowflake and travels the empty Important and Other Stores. In his review he was road through Utah, his rape, at first by accident, “trying to say that people call a mission the best turns to murder. He experiences euphoria. Unusual two years because of all the bad stuff, that con- power. The power becomes another addiction. When fronting and working through affliction causes he comes to Brigham City, he arrives in the middle people to grow” (33). Brigham City informs our of nowhere, to a “proud” society, proud of their Mormon society that we must face the bad stuff. crimelessness, proud of their innocence, a society By not facing it, how much do we enable deceivers? unprepared for the entry of evil. Minch doesn’t Isn’t “enabling” a serious crime in itself? As Scott admit that Dutcher is totally critical of that pride. proposes, it is a woefully inadequate society that We cannot afford it. Evil is everywhere. I explore doesn’t prepare for the worst. this same theme with the town of Sweet Pie in my The opening scene of my novel shows that Ghosts of the Oquirrhs (Salt Press, 2002). My state- Wes Clayton wants peace—almost at any cost. Wes ment in that story is that there is no hiding place would like to have remained in a world with inno- away from the encroachment of evil. cents around him always. He is addicted to the Mormons are not the only ones who hoped to search for paradise. After receiving a surface wound establish their own communities to attain protection in the L.A. police force, he asks for a transfer to and atonement. The nation of America is founded Orange County and specifically to the Lagunas on the same principles. Yet, of course, because of during the small hours, quote, “Laguna Niguel, the presence of free agency, dangerous elements will Laguna Beach, and Dana Point. He had hoped for

32 The Novelizaion of Brigham City: An Odyssey periods of profound quiet when he begged for the of our inaction here? These are questions I will beach district.” Richard and I separately agreed explore in the novel, which is truly the most chal- that Wes was from L.A. lenging writing I have ever done. When he receives a call that his grandfather has I am so honored to have the privilege of explor- died and willed his house in Brigham City to his ing such a pivotal work. Only by grappling with only grandson, Wes is willing to move even further good and evil, only by losing our innocence, can away from L.A. We can see right away that Wes we grow. Scott Parkin says it so well: “Only by leav- loves peace almost at any cost. But is he so addicted ing the paradise of someone else’s creation—often to it that he closes his eyes for too long? Does he forcefully (who would willingly leave paradise, refuse to partake of the forbidden fruit? Remi- after all?)—can we hope to learn the tools to build niscent of the Garden of Eden is the sequence of a paradise of our own creation, a paradise not of events that leads to the Clayton family’s accident, naivete but of the knowledge of good and evil” a scene written for the movie that Dutcher found (Parkin, “Response . . . on Brigham City,” 29). necessary to cut. In the novel, Wes’s wife Sarah At last we know that Brigham City does not shows suspicion of Terry’s problems long before shrink from communion. In accepting themselves Wes does. Finally, at the scene of the accident, Terry and their sheriff and his mistakes, the community (though he has nothing to do with causing the brings him to the table (the sacrament table) to accident) arrives as deputy to find Wes unconscious find atonement. The meaning of the sacrament has and Sarah still alive. Terry knows that Sarah sus- never been so beautifully portrayed as in this story. pects his addictions, so he helps her to die. Wes’s Though we have left the Garden of Eden to face failure to listen to Sarah has allowed Terry more evil, we may focus on overcoming it. And when we time to wreak havoc in the community. Terry’s can’t, we are able to find comfort with one another. accusation at the end is true, that Wes has respon- siblity for those killings. My heart goes out to Presi- BIBLIOGRAPHY dent Bush, who must hear so much criticism. Doesn’t he just want to make sure our blood isn’t on his Clark, Harlow. “Sing, Ye Waste Places of Jerusalem.” hands? Again, what is the price of inaction? These Irreantum 4.3 (Autumn 2002): 33–34. are the questions to ask our own nation just as Wes Duffy, John-Charles. “Serpents in Our Midst: What Clayton asked his little protected community long Brigham City Tells Us about Ourselves.”Irreantum 4.1 (Spring 2002): 14–20. ago. What a struggle it is to maintain safety in the Dutcher, Richard. Brigham City. Original Screen Play, face of deceit. Zion Films, 27 May 2002. But Brigham City goes even further. The last Lauer, Robert. AML-LIST, 30 September 2002. question is, What is the price of refusing to move Martindale, D. Michael. AML-LIST, 28 September 2002. as heartily as one can toward communion and atone- Parkin, Scott R. “A Response to John-Charles Duffy on ment? Why do we make commitments to build up Brigham City.” Irreantum 4.1 (Spring 2002): 20–29. the kingdom of God on earth? What is the price ———. Response to personal email, 3 February 2003.

33 Pious Poisonings and Saintly Slayings: Creating a Mormon Murder Mystery Genre

Lavina Fielding Anderson

character in a murder mystery by D. R. have traditionally made their literary debuts in bad A Meredith explains why she prefers crime fic- literature—sensational, cliché-ridden, and disrep- tion to romance by saying: “There are more ways utable. Over fifty adventure and romance novels to commit murder than there are to have sex, and featuring “violent, conspiratorial Mormon stereo- that makes murder more interesting” (Meredith, 28). types” appeared between 1850 and 1900, followed While I would not presume to comment either by “nearly fifty more such novels—along with on Paul Edwards’s sex life nor his sinister affinity more than two dozen silent movies—were released for crime, I may speculate that he is uniquely quali- between 1900 and 1920.” Probably everyone here fied to write Mormon crime fiction by his aca- has read Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes demic training in philosophy, his long history as an mystery, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887, in explorer in the troubled waters of Mormon history, which that is certainly the role that Mormons play. his skill in navigating academic politics at Grace- Interestingly enough, a year before this work, Doyle land College, and his entirely suspicious expertise wrote a play titled The Dark Angels, never finished, as a long-term bureaucrat at the world headquarters in which he tried out the Danite plot and gave a of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter role to Dr. John Watson in San Francisco. Sherlock Day Saints, now Community of Christ. I find it com- Holmes does not appear. pletely logical that he retired as head of the RLDS The core of Austin’s bibliography is books pub- Church’s Temple School and turned immediately lished between 1979 and 1998. He selected this to a life of crime. beginning date because a series of real-life events By the way, he deeply regrets not being here, has prompted renewed interest in Mormons as but he was compelled by forces beyond his control— “negative and sensational in ways that reminded his children—to show up at the bash they have the country of all of the nineteenth-century anti- planned to celebrate not only his and Carolynn’s Mormon stereotypes that had been bouncing fiftieth wedding anniversary but also his seventieth around in the country’s collective memory for a birthday, which is being presented as an institutional hundred years. . . . These stories include the exe- event by the Center for the Study of the Korean cution of Gary Gilmore, the excommunication of War, of which he is the founder and director. Sonia Johnson, the shooting of John Singer, the Michael Austin has done the most thorough LeBaron murders, the Lafferty murders, the Mark work and compiled the most extensive bibliogra- Hofmann forgeries, the standoff with polygamous phy showing that an increasing number of Mormon leader Addam Swapp, and the human-sacrifice characters, Mormon settings, and Mormon writers killings associated with Jeffrey Lundgren’s Kirtland- are participating in the steady popularity of this based RLDS offshoot.” His eighty-plus books also nationally significant genre. He notes that Mormons meet two other criteria: they deal in a substantial

35 AML Annual 2004 way to Mormonism, and they are marketed prima- is married but childless, and his wife is institution- rily to a non-Mormon audience. alized in a nearby town with a condition never fully Austin focuses on three nineteenth-century themes specified but which leaves her only intermittently refurbished for the twentieth century: “the Mor- coherent and responsive. Taggart’s reticence about mon conspiracy, . . . the blood-atonement murder, her condition, his suffering for her and because and the . . . hostage maiden.” I think it may be pos- of her on his weekly visits, and the marital limbo sible to argue that Paul Edwards’s first mystery that ensues adds an interesting dimension to his char- draws on but significantly transforms the first two acter. It also enables Edwards to balance his lonely themes in philosophically and theologically inter- protagonist on the very thin knife-edge between esting ways. I won’t, in fact, make that argument platonic friendship for and erotic attraction to Marie, because I don’t want to give away the plot, but I both elements of which she reciprocates on at least hope to revisit this topic after publication. some level, while both observe the essential restraint But let’s look more specifically at Edwards’s con- expected of two employees of a conservative reli- tribution to this stream of spilled Mormon blood. gious organization. Edwards complicates this rela- As you all know from reading the interesting inter- tionship by developing a romance between Marie view with Edwards in Irreantum, The Angel Acro- and the detective investigating the murder, thus nym is the first in a series featuring philosopher/ creating a truly subtle and emotionally fraught tri- bureaucrat Toom Taggart, a not very thinly dis- angle of desire and constraint. guised version of Edwards himself, who arrives at A third appealing element is the plot. I read a work one morning to find that one of his employ- lot of crime fiction. In fact, I read more mysteries ees, the Church archivist, has died in an odd acci- than I do Mormon history (and some day everyone dent while examining a document written by Paul’s is going to figure out that I read both for the same controversial grandfather in a successful effort to reason and the jig will be up). But my point is that seize supreme directional control of the Church. there’s a lot of plot recycling that goes on in crime With the assistance of the Church’s brainy lady fiction, so it’s unusual to find a genuinely ingen- lawyer, Marie, he digs deeper, fighting bureaucratic ious plot. Truth to tell, I encounter a lot of truly witlessness on one hand, discussing serious philo- stupid plots in my reading, so I have only the great- sophical questions with the First Presidency’s est admiration for Paul’s research in documenting a “expediter” gopher and maybe hit-man on the mechanism of death that is not only dazzlingly cre- other. (I might add that Tom Kimball, the Signa- ative but absolutely plausible as well as possible. ture publicist, thought that this character’s original A fourth genuine contribution to the genre of name, Rockwell Porterfield, was too obvious and Mormon mysteries is the philosophical element. Paul cooperatively changed this character’s name to Toom Taggart has conversations with Marie about Louis T. Cannon, who is definitely never called by the generational identity crisis that may be signaled the nickname “Loose.”) Naturally, this character by what the students in his night class are named was my nominee as suspect number one, but Toom and some very interesting discussions with Louis T. Taggart continues, relentlessly and gradually filling Cannon on the uses of history, the nature of evil, in the little squares on his logic matrix that will the difference between belief and faith, and the para- identify the murderer. doxes of obedience. Here’s a snippet from that con- Those who have visited Community of Christ versation. Toom asks Cannon: sites in Independence or done research in its fine “Is there anything they’d tell you to do that library-archives will enjoy the fact that the murder you wouldn’t do?” is set in the striking shell-shaped Community of Cannon did not hesitate, even for a sec- Christ temple and associated offices. The realisti- ond. “No. But I know—and you should, cally realized setting is one of the strengths of this too—that they would never ask me to do any- novel. Another is the figure of Taggart himself. He thing that was not right.”

36 Creating a Mormon Murder Mystery Genre

“So if they say it, it’s right?” “This is all that’s left.” “No, Taggart,” he said, as if explaining to a “Left from what, a garage sale?” small child. “That’s not it. It’s just the opposite “No.” It was Barney Sligo. “Left to use.” of. They wouldn’t ask it if it weren’t right. “Meaning?” There’s a considerable difference between those “It’s real simple. Even a philosopher can two positions.” understand it.” Barney was starting to get “Yes, you’re right about that. But this mean now. assumption predisposes you to think that everything they ask is right?” “Try me.” “Since they are,” the flat voice went on, “My orders are not to use the same colored “I’m not too worried about it.” lights this year as the Utah cousins next door. Well, I checked, and between the visitors’ cen- “Would you kill someone?” Toom asked, ter and the meeting house, they’re using red, surprising himself. green, white, blue, and blinking yellow. All that “You’re being asinine. What sort of a ques- leaves me is purple and gold.” tion is that?” “And why can’t we use the same colors as “Humor me. I’m a philosopher.” the Mormons?” “Well, no. I wouldn’t kill anyone. And the Laura sighed. “The reason is that this is the reason I wouldn’t is that they wouldn’t ask me decision. If you want a reason that makes sense, to do that.” (Chap. 14) go somewhere else.” But I have to say that what I adore above all “Why do we have to put up lights at all?” else in this mystery is the office politics, which Toom demanded. forms a kind of hilarious subplot to the serious “See previous answer,” Laura snapped. business of murder. I want to read two scenes to “They’re not all that bad,” announced you. The first occurs when Toom comes to work Ashley judiciously. “It might be a little difficult right after Labor Day and has decorating around these colors in the book- to pick his way through a tangle of Christmas store display, but . . . purple and gold would be tree lights spread out on the floor of the foyer. perfect. It would really make your book the Laura Ripley, Marva Harper, Ashley Martin, centerpiece of the Christmas season display.” and Barney Sligo were screwing in lightbulbs. . . . Saul held up an already lighted string, Toom stared at them in disbelief. Only purple the purple and gold lights reflecting weirdly off and gold were going into the tiny sockets. his white shirt and teeth. . . . [He] plugged in “What is this?” he demanded. the last string and the foyer was filled with “It’s the decorations,” beamed Marva winking ghoulish purple and gold lights. “Merry Harper as Saul staggered backwards out of a Christmas,” said Toom. (Chap. 14) closet. He was carrying a huge cardboard box The book that Ashley is referring to is one on labeled “Star.” the role of angels that the Presiding Bishop has “I can see it’s decorations,” said Toom assigned Toom to write for totally obscure reasons. patiently. “I can even tell that they’re Christ- The scene in which he gets this assignment is mas decorations, in spite of the fact that Labor Day was exactly forty-eight hours ago. What I another of my favorites. He drops a bombshell on don’t understand is why you’re doing them now the good bishop by explaining: and why you chose those colors.” “Lowell, this is very difficult for me. You Barney started to say, “We’re just checking surely know that I don’t believe in angels.” to be sure that—” but Laura snapped, “What’s Bishop Pico walked back and sat down wrong with these colors?” again. He smiled sympathetically, tolerantly. “Well, nothing, I suppose,” Toom said, “Oh, Tom [Bishop Pico always mispronounces “except that they’re awful, Laura.” his name], I understand that you may have said

37 AML Annual 2004

that on some occasion. And of course none of Fortunately, Myrmida, his sarcastic and competent us believe in the sort of angels that you see on secretary, orders up print-outs from the library of TV.” Toom could not recall ever having seen an everything on CD about angels, much of it from angel on TV so he was not sure what company LDS works that sound suspiciously like Bruce R. he was in. “But everybody who believes in God McConkie. (Myrmida’s name, by the way, is per- believes in angels.” fect for an efficient secretary, since the Myrmidons “They do?” were a loyal people of Homer’s Achilles, whose name Pico dropped his voice one more level, has come to mean a subordinate who executes orders producing an even more serious tone. It was an unquestioningly. But the name is actually another incredible talent, and Toom felt frankly envi- in joke, since it was Paul’s mother’s middle name.) ous. “Yes. Yes, Tom, they do. Remember that A few weeks later, Toom drags himself to work, wonderful movie about the baseball team that was visited by the angels who helped them terminally depressed because win the pennant? There is a great line in that the rough draft of that pestilential angel book movie. It was something like ‘If you believe in was due to the Resource Committee and a God you can’t see, then you must believe Aaronic Priesthood Commission. . . . Myrmida in angels you can’t see.’ That really is the posi- had circled the date in a lurid day-glo purple tion we need to take.” with an interior circle of day-glo orange. It had “Lowell,” Tom said with deliberate cau- taken strenuous personal discipline to train tion. “I do not believe in angels.” himself to ignore that side of the room. “Really.” Pico was visibly taken back. “The Then he gets a call from Bishop Pico congratulat- Angel Moroni? You believe in the Angel Moroni, ing him on the fine job he’s done. It only takes him of course? The—er, Book of Mormon?” a few seconds to figure out what has happened. Toom said nothing. Bishop Pico crossed his legs, then uncrossed Toom hung up the phone, then got up and them. He leaned forward again. “This is really strolled out to Myrmida’s desk. “So how did something of a disclosure. How can you be a you do it?” he asked. faithful member and not believe in angels?” She . . . explained modestly, “Oh, it was “It’s easier than you might think, Lowell. simple. . . . The stuff that the Aaronic Quorum But that’s not the point. The point is that I had done was really pretty good, so I just used can’t write a book on angels if I do not believe their manuscript as an outline and stuffed each in angels.” topic with scriptures and stories and snippets of sermon until it was 230 pages long. With “We are asking you to write a book about the computer, it practically wrote itself.” . . . angels. You could do that, couldn’t you? You don’t have to believe in everything you write “So now I know how you did it,” he said. about, do you? That is what writers do, isn’t it?” “Why did you do it?” Toom had to admit that this was, indeed, She sighed. “Toom Taggart, has it ever what some writers did, but not usually those occurred to you that if you got fired, I’d have to employed by religious organizations to explain work for a living?” (Epilogue) theological concepts. (Chap. 4) All of this and mayhem, too! It’s with utter joy So Toom thinks he has refused to write this that I anticipate the continuation of this series. book, but meanwhile it appears on planning sched- ules, publicity promotions, and, as we have seen, color schemes for bookstore displays. His contri- bution to the project is to fasten a memo about it to his bulletin board with a spiral of pushpins that begins at the center and covers the entire page.

38 Murder Most Mormon: Swelling the National Trend (Part II) Conspiring to Commit

Paul M. Edwards

am not sure that I can tell you just what the dif- for murder? The answer, I believe, is yes. Thus, as “I ference is, but I sense there is a difference between promised, I will make a brief comment on this con- being a murderer and being a killer.” So begins Toom sideration. I will then close with a short confession. Taggart’s efforts to explain murder to his friend Marie, in Murder by Tithes, the third in the murder One: The Issues mysteries to be published by Signature Press. In this violent world it appears to be necessary that there The followers of Joseph Smith are no strangers to be men and women who, placed in harm’s way, violence. Over the years we have dealt with murders become killers. The essence of this social necessity of passion, greed, and confused theology; and, I sus- means that there are persons all around us who pect, some murders of institutional existence or in have killed, but few of these, thankfully, are mur- fear of benign neglect. Yet it does not seem reason- derers. It was in trying to understand this some- able to me that the decision to murder someone times subtle distinction I was required to consider would result from a reaction to an already estab- the concepts of intent and expectation. lished theological issue. Few persons understand such things and fewer still treat them seriously. The mystery writer Lawrence Block once Rare also would be murder to right some insult explained that “writers get ideas the way oysters against the body of the church. The larger church get pearls.” This appears to be the manner in which has suffered many such insults and has dealt with the idea of a murder mystery came to me, one them with enviable restraint. hot August afternoon, following my attendance at Rather, I believe that an act of murder would a mandatory five-day conference on “visioning.” have to be an extreme reaction to an equally extreme Several times during the week I had considered threat. And probably, the issue involved would be murdering one or more of my colleagues. Such frail little other than an extreme interpretation of an thoughts do not linger long, however, and it was issue (or issues) dealt with more calmly every day. not until later, when I was mowing the lawn, that I do not believe the crime of boredom requires pun- in retrospect I wondered if I had taken such a step ishment by blood atonement. But murder might could any jury of my peers find me guilty. be the result of a passionate fear of spiritual loss or My complaint is of no importance other than the need to defend something key to the soul of the its potential justification for murder. The point, of believer. It is not too difficult to anticipate what course, is that I considered murder but did not— some of these areas of concern might be. The most and for the record—would not commit such a deed. basic, I thought, would be the issue of historicity, I was not going to murder those persons despite the and so I started there. Others, identified later during fact they deserved it. But, I wondered, might there other afternoons spent with the lawn mower, became be any situation in which one might find justification plots for the rest of the series.

39 AML Annual 2004

I envisioned the murderer, like his or her cause, standardized, those who are deeply committed are would be clear and simple. It was important that inclined to challenge the fear by the development the murderer not be a bad person, but rather a of an extreme passion, one which acknowledges believing human being whose fault was a passion- their passion and which often ends up projecting ate but misdirected commitment. The persons I the mundane as the magnificent. fear are not the mean-spirited fellow travelers who Despite what I have said so far, no actual persons occupy places of importance in our lives. Rather are represented in the characters of my books. This I fear the sweet, narrow-minded individual who is is not only to protect individuals from what might prone to letting single issues become an obsession. be seen as criticism, but also because there are no I fear the persons who, in seeking to be good, are persons within the headquarters structure who pos- incapable of understanding the degree to which sess the extremes I wanted to portray. I am very fond they seek to get their prejudices enacted into law. of the church archivist (Ron Romig) and only reluc- The person identified as the murderer in The tantly kill his character who held the archivist’s job. Angel Acronym represents a kind of person we all But having said this, the characteristics of leader- know, a basically good person for whom the justi- ship within the Community of Christ provides a fication for murder would, in his or her context, representation of both the humanity and the divin- also be seen as good. ity of the calling. The “fatal flaw” in this circum- The hero, identified as Toom Taggart, needs to stance is found in the paradox of leadership inherent be smart and clever, but he must not be arrogant. in the organization. Those in leadership—at head- He must, also, suffer from some of the same flaws quarters and in congregations (wards)—are torn of the villain—that is being easily identified with between their calling as ministers and their assign- his own passions. To make it easier I gave him much ment as managers. Despite Stephen Covey’s naïve of the same background as my own, but taking optimism, this will never be a win–win situation. advantage of fiction, I was able to make him nicer, And, under a lot of circumstances, this variance is smarter, younger, and thinner than myself. the source of many of the ills of the movement. It is the conflict between order and compassion. Let me illustrate from this brief passage from Two: The Environment Murder by Tithes: I consider the environment created by the RLDS “So, what can I do for you?” he asked. (now called Community of Christ) as a field ripe What did you want to talk to me about?” The for such a murder and ready for the harvest. After congregational pastor was an honest man who sixty years a member and more than four decades took his responsibility very seriously. in professional association with the institution, “I’m afraid I have made some rather I am both knowledgeable of and frustrated by the unwise decisions lately,” Ida said, “some things movement. The body of the church is identified I need to reconsider.” with its passions—or lack of them—and the good “Yes,” the older man said. “Yes. How can and evil it does is often confused by the paradoxi- I help?” cal structure of the goal, purposes, and mission of “Well,” Ida was determined to express her- the church. I see it as the perfect environment in self clearly, “there is this man at work. He and . . .” which to picture humanity’s expectations and follies. “Hold it! Hold it!” The pastor was excited. The more one is committed to the articulations “Does this have anything to do with sex?” of the movement, the easier it is to be dissatisfied “Well, yes, in a way,” Ida said. “We . . .” with its lesser goals. Mere involvement identifies a “Hold it! Hold it! I need to warn you Ida passion of sort, but, as acceptance becomes stan- that as the pastor I will need to take some dard, it is important to acknowledge that love with- action if you have broken the laws of the out passion is no love at all. As the body becomes church.”

40 Murder Most Mormon: Swelling the National Trend

“I thought I could talk to my pastor freely.” Michael Cores was not amused. “The It was a statement. communion?” “You can, oh yes you can. It is just that as “No,” Toom said and then thought it the pastor, I am to report any church law that sounded defensive. ‘The bread and the grape has been broken.” juice, the leftover. It was just leftover food.” “But it was communion,” he said again. In any conflict, the primary commitment to “No it wasn’t Mike. It had been commun- the organization looms largest and most easily jus- ion earlier in the morning,” Toom replied, “but tified. Given a serious challenge to the life, or the by the time I flushed it down the toilet, it was value, of the movement, the value of a single per- just leftovers.” son is often sacrificed for the larger needs of the “The communion is supposed to be dis- community. A fellow traveler of this difficulty is posed of with dignity.” the inherent confusion between having authority “You mean like down the garbage disposal.” and being an authority—in the Community of “You’re trying to make this sound as if it Christ some of these persons are actually called were not serious. It is serious,” Mike said, his “General Authorities.” The transfer of authority face was a light red. from spiritual calling to technical decision making “It is serious, to some folks, but not because looms large and is the source of considerable insti- what I did was wrong. But because you and a lot tutional confusion and mediocrity. of others like you are making a problem out of it.” “I wanted to hear your side to the story.” Three: The Seriousness “Don’t you think that tells us more about you than it does about me, or the commun- From my perspective, members of the Mormon ion?” Then asked, “You don’t agree, do you?” persuasion take things very seriously—too seri- Toom asked. “You don’t think that what I did ously—and some members take some things so was a desecration of the communion?” seriously that they cannot be considered at all. “No, I suppose not, but there is a thin line That seems to me to be counterproductive: faith between the idea of sacrament as mystical par- without a doubt is no faith at all. I have tried my ticipation, and the communion as a symbolic hand at suggesting a less serious look and have not, re-enactment. When you make such an unfeel- in the main, been very successful. ing—an insensitive move, it seems to betray The mysteries, I concluded, might make it pos- the spiritual side of it, the mystical side.” sible to raise some of these serious topics by pre- “Mike, I think you are confusing the sym- senting them in a manner where they would not be bol with what it symbolizes,” Toom said. seen as a threat. After all, it is only a mystery story. “Right. It is symbolic but must be treated Perhaps I could use this genre to suggest just how as that which it symbolizes,” Mike said. ludicrous some ideas become when left unconsidered. “That’s it. They are symbols. So as symbols Let me illustrate with this passage from the sec- they have no value in and of themselves. If that ond volume of the series, Murder by Sacrament. It is what we believe, what does it matter what is part of a conversation between Toom and the happens to the symbols when they are no longer the symbol?” Community of Christ theologian Michael Coors, who has accused Toom of having desecrated the “I am not sure” Michael said. “It is just not the same.” communion. “What did you do?” Michael Coors asked. “I flushed it down the toilet,” Toom said. Four: The Confession “Why would you do that?” A brief confession is called for in case you think my “It gets there eventually.” efforts are altruistic. To a very large extent I wrote

41 AML Annual 2004 these mysteries because I wanted to. Let’s call it ther- parents look for something better than the cute apy. My experience in writing nonfiction is that names of the late seventies and eighties, they few persons read what I have written, and fewer are moving away from Barbie doll and movie still agree with it. Writing fiction which someone star names. Just as totally non-pious folks, in might read, and no one will take seriously, has been a nostalgic and defiance appropriation of reli- food for my soul. Besides, fiction gives me the gion, revived Quaker and Pilgrim names a gen- eration ago—” opportunity to comment on almost anything that aggravates or excites me without a lot of support- Marie nodded, “Chastity, Joshua, Sarah.” ing arguments and elaborate footnotes. “—so the truly modem person will turn to Take this brief exchange between Toom and his modern religion. In other words, commercials. I am thinking of Static Cling or Downey Soft friend Marie concerning the names of students in for the girls; and Pop Tart or Automax for one of his classes: boys. And for parents who prefer not to differ- “In the same small class I have one girl entiate genders, a simple Fruit of the Womb called April Love, another named September might suffice.” Morn, two who answer to Solomon, and a wide assortment of Trishes, Trickets, Wendee, and one Moralnada.” Conclusions “Interesting!” observed Marie. It would be unfair to suggest that I engaged in this “There’s more. I have a girl named Thomas activity in hope of social revision or organizational and a burly, heavyset young man who answers change. That is giving my intentions and expecta- to the name Delilah.” tions far too much credit. But there is some truth “Come on,” she said. “This is too much.” to the idea that I recognize the value of fiction in He raised his hand like a witness taking an trying to articulate philosophical ideas because of oath. “Verily, I lie not. Thinking about this the baggage they carry. I have made the attempt to I have come to the conclusion that each new use the mysteries to express concerns and beliefs generation seeks an ever-stranger means of iden- while at the same time hoping to tell an interesting tifying its young. And I think the future is in story and amuse the reader. The writing of them commercials.” has been a highly successful venture for me, only “In commercials?” Marie furrowed her time and the readers will tell if that is going to be brow. It was distracting. true for anyone else. “Yes, as this generation gets more conserva- tive and institutional-minded and the bewildered

42 God and Man in The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Bradley D. Woodworth

well-known American novel begins with My fundamental interpretive stand toward this Athis: novel is that Edgar is simply a representative of the NOTICE human race. He is “us,” as we move through the vale of this mortal existence. You might call Udall’s novel PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting a version of Man’s Search for Happiness, though in to find a moral in it will be banished; persons the case of Edgar it is more like “Man’s Search attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. in Enduring Suffering.” BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Udall’s power as a writer is rooted in his refusal Chief of Ordnance. to flinch from the suffering and evil that we expe- (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry rience in life. Udall is not sadistic; the reader real- Finn) izes that the author does not get any pleasure from showing us the awful things that happen to Edgar. Brady Udall has given the same sort of message What we as readers gradually come to realize is that to readers of his fiction. In an interview with the Udall is simply showing us the human condition. journal Irreantum, Udall said: “I don’t want to He is saying, “Look, here is a case of real trials and teach the reader a lesson of any kind. I simply want them to have a hair-raising, heart-thumping, mind- suffering; here is what life can bring—now, let’s see numbing, soul-tearing experience” (“Interview: how this character deals with it.” How does Edgar Brady Udall,” 15). deal with his suffering? Though Edgar realizes he is The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint is certainly not a character in his own story (the novel is one long a didactic novel. However, like The Adventures of flashback described by an adult Edgar), he does not Huckleberry Finn (both indeed are heart-thumpers) dramatize his own suffering. Childlike, he takes it it contains deeply literary and morally informed in stride, accepting the world for what it is. Edgar themes and artistic material that enrich the story survives simply by enduring; he just keeps moving and raise the novel’s aesthetic power and, I would forward. And isn’t this the case with us, when argue, its spiritual resonance. undesirable—even very bad things—happen? The novel describes the suffering of a young, I don’t think that Udall finds redemption in half-Apache boy named Edgar Mint. Though much suffering; he doesn’t see it as a path to greater under- of what Edgar experiences is described in black standing. Udall likes his joy, contentment, and per- comic style, he still is subject to a series of horrific sonal satisfaction as much as the next guy. But he events: he loses his parents; his head is run over by knows that life dishes up large servings of pain and a mail truck from which it takes him several years suffering, and it is these difficulties he is interested to recover; and he undergoes physical and psycho- in exploring in his art. We cannot change the fact logical torture at a boarding school. that we will experience disappointment and great

43 AML Annual 2004 difficulties in life, Udall argues, but we can explore quickly destroys his career as a doctor. He is forced to ways in which we can cope and even win in the end. leave the hospital, named, significantly, St. Divine’s— For me, this book is made aesthetically and that is, he ceases being a chosen angel. He soon spiritually profound through the combination of the becomes a drug-dealing devil, ever at Edgar’s heels, engaging primary story—Udall’s depiction of Edgar’s trying to bring him into his orbit of influence, journey through his youth—with the deeply Mor- seeking to convince Edgar that he, Barry, knows mon cosmological world within which he places what is best for the boy. “How art thou fallen from his hero and other characters. At the center of the heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” (Isa. 14:12). action of the novel are two relationships: first, Toward the end of the novel, we see that like Satan between Edgar and an old, alcoholic, broken man in this passage from Isaiah, Barry too is “brought named Art; and second, between Edgar and a one- down to hell, to the sides of the pit” (Isa. 14:15). time physician, Barry, who stalks the boy through- Let me mention a couple of other points about out the book. These relationships are allegories for Barry’s allegorical identity. In the Utah sequence, the relationships between man, God, and Satan in when Edgar is in the Indian Placement Program, their traditional Mormon conception, with Edgar Barry seeks to get close to the boy through flatter- as man (that is, mankind), Art as God, and Barry as ing and tempting Edgar’s foster mother, Lana. Satan. This spiritual, cosmological element reveals What goes on between Edgar’s foster parents and the ambition of this novel. Like Milton in his epic Barry clearly parallels events in the Garden of of man’s condition on earth, Udall also seeks Eden. By the way, note that Lana, married to Clay (like Adam, meaning “of the earth”), is the more what is low [to] raise and support; educated and inquisitive of the two. Just how suc- That to the height of this great Argument I may assert Eternal Providence, cessful Barry is with his seduction of Lana is And justify the ways of God to men. unclear, but there is no doubt about what is going (Paradise Lost, Book 1, 23–26) on: Lana and Clay, Edgar’s adoptive parents, are in a struggle with Barry over the boy’s future, just as I hesitate to lay out all the figurative events and Satan entered the Garden and contended with our circumstances in the book that I think refer to the first parents over the future of the human race. Mormon variant of the Christian story of the rela- Why does Udall give Barry so many pages in tionship between man and God, because you all the book? If you read Udall’s first book, the collec- should have the chance yourselves to find the par- tion of short stories titled Letting Loose the Hounds allels that Udall has placed in the book. I will not (Norton, 1997), you will see that he has a rather have time here to mention all the allegorical and dark view of the world. I think I agree with Udall metaphorical material I find in the novel; there is that here on earth we have to contend with Barrys probably plenty more I have not yet found. But let much more than we get to spend time with people me present a few key examples. like Art. Let’s start with Barry. Many readers, profes- Before I move on to discuss Art, let me ask: sional book reviewers included, have had a hard what about Christ? If my interpretation of the novel time understanding why the alternatively annoy- is correct, surely there must be a Christ figure! I think ing and terrifying Barry keeps showing up. After Cecil, Edgar’s best and closest friend at the board- Edgar, Barry is the character the reader spends the ing school, is Udall’s Christ. Cecil delivers Edgar most time with. Who is he? At the opening of from the torments of a bully when he shoots the the novel he is a young, driven, and caring doctor bully with a homemade bow and arrow. We learn who saves Edgar’s life after the horrific accident that Cecil is convicted of aggravated assault and is with the mail truck. But when Barry does not get sent to a juvenile prison in Nevada. Later, when the credit he thinks he deserves after saving Edgar, Edgar is in Utah, he learns of Cecil’s death from a his sense of injured merit and thwarted ambition fall in the prison. He and Clay then drive to the

44 God and Man in The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint prison and manage to view the body, a scene remi- and I find it deeply moving. Art cannot save Edgar niscent of the two Marys viewing Jesus’ body in the from suffering and pain; he is limited by the world sepulcher after the Crucifixion. both live in. What he can do is be there every once Let me move on to some comments about Art. in a while just to show that he understands and First, I think the very choice of Art’s name shows that he cares. Udall’s sense of humor. The words “Art is God” can I treasure this traditional Mormon anthropo- be taken several ways, depending on whether you morphic view of God. I don’t mind at all that God mean Art the character or “art,” the thing that might be finite, subject to the constraints inherent artists create. Udall, however, is not at all flippant in the physical universe. I feel more comfortable in his treatment of this character. Art in his own with a contingent than an absolute deity, one who way is indeed a shepherd for Edgar, a role to which is more like than unlike me in nature. The anthro- his surname—Crozier—points. (A “crosier” is the pomorphic and anthropocentric theology of The shepherd’s hook used by high-level officials in sev- Miracle Life of Edgar Mint bears out the spiritual eral Christian churches.) Art and Edgar meet in power and artistic potential of these ideas. We need St. Divine’s hospital, and as Edgar begins to recover not surrender these traditional Mormon views to from getting run over, Art watches out for him. In the juggernaut of neo-orthodoxy. Neo-orthodox this passage, Art assists Edgar in getting loose from Protestant Christian thought describes God as very the restrains of his hospital bed, while at the same different and distant from us, as an absolute being time he helps Edgar move from his bed to solid from whom man is inevitably alienated. The recent ground: adoption of neo-orthodox views in many LDS [Art] unbuckled the restraints—it took him circles has included a focus on Christ and his per- awhile to figure them out with only one good fection, one so strong it seems to eclipse God in hand—then stole every pillow and blanket he significance. Within LDS neo-orthodoxy, man and could find in the room and placed them around deity are fundamentally different from each other, my bed, creating a landing pad. That night I rather than fundamentally alike. Udall’s theology threw myself off the bed twice, and both times in The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint points to more Art was there to help me back up, make sure I traditional Mormon views of God and the Godhead. didn’t have any lasting injuries, and to argue Toward the end of the novel, Art and Edgar with the nurses when they came in wanting to meet again. (The scene, incidentally, has clear par- know why the restraints had been taken off. allels with LDS temple worship.) We find that Art (Udall, Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, 34) treasures the contact he has with Edgar: he needs it Another example: Before Edgar leaves the hos- to get himself through his own suffering. In Udall’s pital, Art gives him an old manual typewriter, a view, both man and God are co-sufferers. I find the “Hermes Jubilee” model (Hermes is a messenger of notion that Edgar and Art—man and God—need the gods in Greek mythology). Throughout the each other to help them give meaning and sub- book, Edgar types out his thoughts, his fears, and, stance to their lives a profound theological insight. occasionally, letters to Art, which invariably go Like our own lives, Edgar’s life is a mixture of unanswered. Clearly, Edgar’s letters to Art are prayers survival and miracle. I think the existence of this to God. book is a miracle, and I am very grateful for it. I think I find Art to be moving, especially as he is not it is one of the most honest books I’ve ever read depicted as omnipotent and all-knowing, or even about how happiness and divinity, suffering and as particularly virtuous. He is flawed, and like evil, really do work in our lives. In a recent interview Edgar, he too suffers. Simply, Art is a member of Udall has said: the human race. The clearly implied anthropomor- Though I’m not the most spiritual or religious phic view of God is I think the very most Mormon guy in the world, I know that God plays a cen- thing about the underlying theology of the book, tral role in the lives of people everywhere. It’s

45 AML Annual 2004

hard for me to understand why so many con- shut. I learned that cigarettes, beer and coffee temporary writers seem to be reluctant or were all no-nos, and that chastity, which I under- downright afraid to confront God in their stood to mean keeping away from females work. I guess I write about God because God is entirely, was a must. And most importantly, in our lives, whether we want Him there or I learned about this God who presided over not.” (Udall, “Interview”) this place called heaven where my mother was, who had a plan for me, who loved me with- One of the amazing things about this book is out qualification, who watched over me. God, that one can read and enjoy it merely for its rousing I learned, would never die, would never disap- and touching story, while remaining unaware of the pear without notice, would never beat anybody theological elements I have discussed here. Udall’s up, would never grow sick or old or tired of liv- accomplishment is all the greater in that you do not ing. He might become angry or disappointed, need to see the theology to enjoy the book, though yes, but He would never abandon you. in my case it certainly gives the book even greater Okay, I would accept Him, I decided. I’d aesthetic and spiritual power. At times in the novel have to be an idiot not to. these two worlds—the mundane world of Edgar So, I typed Him a little prayer that said: and the deeper theological world in which Udall God. This is Edgar. I will take it. (Udall, Mira- has placed him—come together and are joined. Let cle Life of Edgar Mint, 226–27) me end by reading to you one of these passages. Here, God chooses Edgar, then Edgar chooses God: BIBLIOGRAPHY The Elders taught me all they could and I “Interview: Brady Udall,” Irreantum 3.4 (Winter tried my best to get it all sorted out. I learned 2001–2): 13–17. that my mother and I could be reunited and Udall, Brady. “Interview.” Available at http://www live on together into eternity where nobody .bookbrowse.com/index.cfm?page=author&author got old or sick or—Elder Spafford promised ID=792&view=interview. me—bored. I learned that Jesus, God’s only ———. The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint. New York: son, had suffered for every one of my sins, for W. W. Norton, 2001. all the guilt and sorrow they caused. This did not seem very fair to me, but I kept my mouth

46 Brady Udall, the Smart-Ass Deacon

Mary L. Bingham Lee

f I could tell you one thing about my life it buddy next to him to hear and sometimes loud Iwould be that I kissed Brady Udall’s cousin . . . enough for some of the rest of us to hear. On the first day of class, Professor Barnes The next time I saw Brady Udall was on the rounded the desk at the front of room 2150 JKHB, back flap of his book jacket of The Miracle Life of swung her ample thigh up on one edge of the desk, Edgar Mint. “Good for him,” I thought, and I started slid her behind onto the well-worn desktop, and to read—despite a small tickle of jealousy in my gut. finally dragged her other leg up to join the rest of As I read the pages of Edgar Mint the margins her. When she was seated comfortably, legs dan- began to swim with my commentary: “Drunk Indian gling and swinging back and forth, she called the mother—nice stereotype . . . idiot . . . how does a roll. My name came midway through the list—it white boy know how to be Apache? . . . How was a change from my earlier years in college when does a white boy know how to be a woman? . . . No I was a Bingham. But marriage moved me to the Eros . . . the minute I feel compassion I feel like I “L” section, where I blandly answered “here” to am being set up for another tragedy—or to be the name “Lee.” mocked . . . ” By the time Professor Barnes reached the “U” I was horrified at the attention to detail but the section, my mind had drifted away; I wondered if lack of intimacy I felt with the characters—as if I my babysitter was managing well enough, I started were watching a burlesque of pain and tragedy. a shopping list in the top left-hand corner of my I would have set the book down but continued to notebook and I wondered if this teacher was going read as a matter of principle—discomfort is not to be hard or easy. I left those thoughts sitting in a reason to put down a book—it is often the only midair and shifted my attentions to the back of the reason to keep reading. room when I heard the name “Udall” called out. It When I finally made it through the novel and had been a few years since I had heard that name— started reading reviews, I found that others shared there were one or two dates, a quick “see ya later” some of the same attitudes. There were many who and then we had parted amicably enough. When I objected to Udall’s work, but mostly I saw over- looked over my shoulder so see if it was “him,” I saw whelming support of his work. Mormon men, it someone who could have shared the gene pool seemed, loved it. Mormon women did too. Some with the Udall that I once knew, but who was def- Mormons stopped reading it before it was over but initely not the “him” I was worried about. usually those who objected kept reading, and in This was enough to make me notice Brady Udall what seemed to be a sort of penance, some felt the first day of class. I remember him as a guy who compelled to list all of the offensive things in the sat on the back row. He was a whisper-under-your- book. Sometimes it was immediately followed up breath joker who spoke just loud enough for his with an “I loved it despite these things.”

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I couldn’t love it. Reading the book reminded spot, re-create, and set down in medias res? How me of being stranded in Bullhead City on our Mutual can he be so maddening but unapologetic and at Super Activity. We were waiting to set down on the the same time so unconcerned with Mormon “issues”? river when some problem that only the adult chap- He shies away from taking himself too seriously, he erones were privy to required us to sit and wait for refuses to wax platitudinal He was not at all what I hours. While the deacons threw decomposing fish was used to seeing in a Mormon writer. carcasses at one another, the Beehives braided one There was no insecurity about where he came another’s hair and shot disparaging glances at the from culturally, none of the typical nombrilism of immature boys. The deacons had a predilection for a writer who comes from our small town of Mor- decomposing life; we, on the other hand, were drawn monism. I could not detect either the “I’ll-show- to a life of order. I wrote in large block letters across them-that-I-am-not-from-a-peculiar-people” nor page 187: BRADY THE SMART-ASS DEACON IS TRY- the “I’ll-show-them-how-special-we-Mormons-are” ING TO MAKE ME SQUIRM. He seemed to be lead- underlying worries. He seems to have escaped the ing me to piles of rot to sift through with him insecurities that we all seem to have and simply when I kept asking for an order, a moral, a pur- writes well. pose. He infuriated me. It occurred to me that he escaped all of angst Despite boiling Beehive anger, I had to admit that we share with one another at gatherings like on thing: this was a smart-ass who knew how to this AML conference by just having a good time. write. He was someone who had paid attention But even more than that, he seems to have made to detail. He could nuance the awkwardness of a (possibly instinctual or maybe a deliberate) wise belief in Edgar’s discomfort with his own self- choice: he put on a persona that we Mormons discovery. Udall could call in the demons of long- rarely approve of in anyone older than a deacon— ing for something yet undefined in the heart of an that of smart-ass. Brady Udall became the adult eight-year-old. He could take you to the point, as version of the kid who gets ushered out of hushed reader, that you want to call foul for emotional meeting rooms because he is disrupting the gravity manipulation but leave you just shy of doing so that should be felt in the house of God. We Mor- because he knows when to stop. mons don’t really want to believe in the profane I began to ask myself questions about this cre- and the sacred sitting together in the same room— ative brand of impudence, and why he used his tal- or existing in the same person simultaneously. We ent in a way that so offended me. I thought about thump deacons who disturb meetings and shame the things I knew of his origins—common lore them into the appearance of holiness. about St. John’s, Arizona, and Mormonism, and his Sometimes those smart-asses grow up to be people writings that might lead me to something signifi- we know: the pseudo-iconoclast, the pious/conflicted cant to say about him. I tried to examine what it was believer, the world weary come-home-to-set-you- that set him apart from other Mormon writers—or provincial-people-straight prodigal son, the Church made us as Mormons respond to him so clamorously. has done me wrong person, the if-you-don’t-like- So how does a boy who was too smart for his it-then-leave prig. We see these people all around own good, son of educators, baptized in good liter- us. Sometimes the conflict makes artists out of ature and small town life, who peered out at the them and we are quick to categorize their art. This world from the middle of a clan that made enough is the art of a “Mormon” artist, or a lapsed Mor- noise to keep the world distracted while he took mon—we sometimes rely on labels to instruct our note, grow up to tell a story? How does one who reading of a particular art. But Udall, it seems, has seems to soak up the world around him decide to managed to elude most of the common labels by put it all together and why does he write without adopting a stance that we have a hard time recog- the least bit of earnestness? How does he tell a story nizing—that of Trickster. Brady Udall’s use of the without being the very fool that he so easily can Trickster persona in Edgar Mint requires the Mormon

48 Brady Udall, the Smart-Ass Deacon audience to reevaluate our reading or misreading of more sympathetic to a sensitive audience, Udall his work, recognize our own culpability in the mis- allows that young boy’s impression to stand—even reading of ourselves, and possibly ameliorate the at the risk of making his audience wince at the pain of our culture’s self-inflicted wounds. stereotype. In classic Trickster tales, we do not have Because we have lost the Trickster tradition, the luxury of a reliable narrator but are carried and maybe have a hard time recognizing him, let along on a journey that is not cushioned to make it me give you some background on this figure. Trick- more comfortable. Trickster’s job is to jarr the audi- ster has been a part of the Western canon for cen- ence, to tease them and make them uncomfortable. turies, but we often call him Hermes, before that His job is that of transporting a person/culture from he was Mercurius (Jung, cited in Radin, 195). He one place to another—in other words, growth is both a God and a fool in Native American tradi- from discomfort, growth through irreverence, through tions. He comes in many forms, from animals, to setting up expectations and tearing them down. female and male, to a grotesquely disproportionate So my earlier complaint about the lack of Eros almost-human creature with overly developed or in Edgar Mint is absurd, because in an ironic piece, extra body parts. He is a mythical figure whose job one cannot demand such an earnest element. Eros it is to move humans from one state of being to is simply inappropriate to the genre. A picaresque another. He is also overbearingly obnoxious and never promises to treat life as if it has an overarch- never apologetic for being so. He is a mischief- ing meaning with happy endings, romance with maker whose mischief often turns on him, but who meaning and earnest instruction for living. Trick- continues on his course. He is not accountable to ster never promises to be anything but an irrever- tradition, decorum and social mores, but is surpris- ent smart-ass. If Edgar Mint is indeed ultimately ingly often accountable to God. controlled by Trickster, most of my complaints of I was a bit embarrassed to realize that, like the foul play can simply be dismissed, as the genre and women from a classic Trickster tale who were sur- tone do not support sincerity. prised to find that they were picking more than Edgar Mint is full of references to be read and strawberries on the bank of the river across from misread over and over again, but Udall insists over Trickster’s hiding place—I had been fooled by all and over in interviews that he doesn’t believe in of his attempts to goad me. By taking myself too symbols in literature; he claims to be simply telling seriously as a reader, and he, as a writer, I walked a story. My co-panelist, Brad, began his paper with into his mischief and became the fool. It seems to Mark Twain’s indictment of those who would super- me that many of us, whether we love or hate Udall’s impose meaning over a damn good story, and I think work, have misread him and remade his work into he is exactly right in his implication that Udall our own image. He is neither a God or cretin, nor stands firmly in Twain’s camp. Udall takes a great possessed or dispossessed, he is Trickster stirring up liking to Twain’s temerity and often lists him as an a bit of trouble. That trouble is supposed to lead us influence in his writing, but I would go further to to change. say he looks to him as a model for interacting with Trickster was the king of irony when Rabelias his readership—that of taking an ironic distance donned his persona as a response to courtly love in from praise with an occasional tweak of his public’s the sixteenth century (Bakhtin, 2). He is the per- nose. He can be seen as a sort of Trickster figure for sona who dismantles highly ordered, structured, his irreverence and lack of apology for it. restrictive codes of conduct. He means to push the Let’s not forget that Udall is more than just audience with audaciously stereotyped characters. an average guy telling a tall tale. His exposure to For instance. Udall’s women are meant to be rela- good literature seeps out, possibly by accident—as tively one-dimensional because they are seen from he may like us to believe, though it may be said the point of view of a young boy. While other con- that God (and symbols) are there whether you temporary novels might have tried to make them want them to be or not. If we are to allow Udall his

49 AML Annual 2004 awe-shucks-I’m-just-spinning-a-yarn-posture, at It is difficult to find many Trickster figures in least we can credit him with coming to the table with our Mormon culture. Because Trickster has a trans- more slung on his back than the average Trickster. gressive side, he is often asked to leave our com- Udall’s nods to Trickster in Edgar Mint are gen- munity or repent. We allow Trickster to live outside erous. At times Edgar, at times, Barry, and at times of our culture, in “other” communities, but we are Nelson takes up the role of Trickster. Edgar is uncomfortable with him as a good-standing mem- Hermes escorting the dead to Hades when he ber of our own. Often those who take on the Trick- throws Barry into the pit. Barry is Trickster in ster role in our Mormon culture are marginalized. his constantly shifting shape and his insistence They take their place quietly on the back row of upon mischief. Nelson is nothing but malicious our meetings—close to the door. jokes; he burns the anus of a fellow classmate We watch Trickster from a distance in main- instead of his own (as Trickster has been known to stream culture while we extricate him from our do), but is finally punished for his predatory activ- own. Possibly the only reason we reject Trickster ities (as Trickster often is). is upon moral grounds, but we also may fall into Not only are people symbolic of Trickster, but Diamond’s model. We may be trying to forget a objects allude to the Trickster tradition: Edgar’s type- past where model Mormons swore, chewed tobacco, writer the “Hermes Jubilee” delivers his prayers drank, practiced folk magic, danced in the temple, to God and delivers him literally from Barry and and had many wives. Diamond describes a culture figuratively from illiteracy. His talisman—a urinal that leaves Trickster behind in the road to becom- puck—is reminiscent not only of Hermes’ talisman, ing what that culture sees as “civilized.” In this bel- but more recently of the cake of soap Leopold Bloom letristic setting it is hard to deny that we aspire to finds in his pocket in the Hades chapter of James establishing our own collection of arts and letters. Joyce’s Ulysses. Udall’s references to a wide array of We dream of making lasting contributions to the Trickster figures show, if nothing else, Udall’s world with our art. There is little doubt that Mormon attraction to the idea of Trickster. culture loses a few more insecurities that come As Mormons we may have a difficult time rec- from being a “peculiar people” every time we are ognizing Trickster because of our own attempt at recognized by someone outside our own culture, repressing this character in our culture as well as in when we are deemed “civilized” by onlookers. This our system of belief. In his essay entitled “Job and is evidenced as we celebrate laudatory headlines, the Trickster,” Stanley Diamond compares Trick- mainstream acceptance of a “Mormon” personas, ster to Job. We tend to embrace the figure of Job, and as we rush to claim art created by Mormons who serves to reinforce the concept of good and as “Mormon Art” if it is not too transgressive, but evil originating from two distinct sources (xi–xiii). reject art created by Mormons if it is contrary to Though this matches our theology we may find Mormon ideals some use in allowing the Trickster figure’s alterna- Diamond warns us that in the pursuit of civi- tive to such a worldview to shed some light on the lization, as we repress our Trickster past, we may bias built into our own system of belief. lose the value of a vision of God through Trickster’s According to Diamond, Trickster serves as a eyes. He claims that a society which attributes evil manifestation of an ambivalent God who is the to two separate sources (e.g., God and Satan in the single source of both good and evil. Diamond Job story) perpetuates the idea that claims that as a culture moves from a primitive to integrated acts have been disintegrated into civilized culture it tends to want to repress the idea contrasting ideas: human behavior is now seen that God has the capacity for humor—or tolerance as representing, and being driven by, principles of mischief. The culture begins to take itself so seri- that are in the first instance, abstracted from ously that it rejects its own past, which is consid- the reality of actual behavior. Actual behavior ered to be full of folly and foolishness (xi–xiii). is never wholly good nor wholly evil: such

50 Brady Udall, the Smart-Ass Deacon

pristine purity is never encountered, least of all The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint has been called in primitive societies. It is only with the civi- a “coming of age story,” and it arrives upon the lized reversal of principles and persons that such scene of our attempts to come of age as a Mormon an attitude becomes conceivable; the abstrac- people. Brady Udall, whether by providence or plan, tion becomes a weapon against the person. has provided us with a hint of what we so hunger (Diamond, xv) for—authenticity. We can deify Udall, or dislike Primitive cultures that include Trickster in their him immensely, but his role in the making of this society don’t even have the notion of a person who novel has given us the opportunity to reexamine is purely good or purely evil. “In primitive perspec- what it means to be a Mormon—and in our con- tive, human beings are assumed to be capable of text here, a Mormon artist. Udall has cast a per- any excess. But every step of the way, the person is spicuous shadow on what we know about God, our held to account for those actions that seriously culture, and ourselves by choosing to resurrect a threaten the balance of society and nature” (Dia- figure that we have so long ago dismissed from mond, xxi). among us. We may see why a society as a whole may ben- It is said that the Gods sent Trickster to man to efit from a tradition of Trickster from Diamond’s help us. His greatest tool in doing so is humor. And perspective. Carl Jung advocates the importance of unlike our common usage today—of humor as the Trickster figure for the individual: simply laughter—maybe we can return to the orig- inal use of humor which has much to do with bal- Man has forgotten the trickster. He remembers ance. Too much emphasis placed one of the original him only figuratively and metaphorically. As four humors and a person was said to lack balance. soon as people gather together in masses and Blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy were pro- submerge the individual, the shadow is mobi- lized, and, as history shows, may even be per- duced by Trickster—to make us balanced—to sonified and incarnated. . . . make us see and be transported to a place where we He thinks the meaning of existence would might be made whole. Even in sorrow and melan- be discovered if food and clothing were deliv- choly—in a story full of sadness—we need humor ered him gratis on his own doorstep, or if every- to lend us balance. Trickster’s presence, if allowed, body possessed an automobile. Such are the will help us examine our choices as individuals and puerilities that rise up in place of an unconscious as artists; art (and a life) that suffers from lack of shadow and keep it unconscious. As a result of introspection or individuation can be decidedly these prejudices the individual feels totally anemic or wholly a practice in mimesis. dependent on his environment and loses all Brady Udall could have told his story about capacity for introspection. In this way his code little Edgar from the safe acceptance of the pulpit of ethics is replaced by a knowledge of what is in one of our churches. I am sure it would have permitted or forbidden or ordered. (Jung, cited been as compelling, sincere, and grave in a voice in Radin, 207) other than that of Trickster. He may have even had The implications of our overwhelming absence of a larger Mormon readership. But Udall moved to a Trickster figure in our society as well as our arts the back row—the place where humor has man- and letters are too many to draw out in this con- aged to keep a tiny hold in our culture, the place text, but it is instructive that Jung seems to think where smart-ass deacons go to sit when they are all the “animas” or “soul” lives inside the shadow of grown up—and he set about weaving a story for Trickster and that if we repress that shadow we may us. Told from the back row, in Trickster’s uninhib- not ever experience animas. “A minatory and ridicu- ited voice, this story becomes one that with humor lous figure, he [Trickster] stands at the very begin- and humanity beckons all to renew our faith in the ning of the way of individuation” (Jung, cited in joy of all who sorrow. Radin, 211).

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WORKS CITED WORKS REFERENCED Diamond, Stanley. “Job and the Trickster.” In The Eberhart, John Mark. “‘Mint’ Pairs Humor, Injury in Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, by Tale of Orphan’s Life.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Paul Radin, xi–xxii. New York: Schocken Books, online posting, 4 January 2003. www.jsonline 1972. .com/enter/books/jan03/107824.asp. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. My Zone. “Author Interview: Brady Udall” Online Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University posting. 5 February 2003. www.myzone.co.za/ Press, 1988. myzone/zBook/authudall.cfm Radin, Paul. The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956. New York: Schocken Books, 1972 Udall, Brady. The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint. New York. W. W. Norton, 2001.

52 Egypt and Israel versus Germany and Jews: Comparing Margaret Blair Young’s House without Walls to the Bible

Nichole Sutherland

n the novel House without Walls, Margaret Blair and I intend to keep it’” (10). In the Bible, Abra- IYoung carefully juxtaposes the charged concepts ham prays to the Lord “what wilt thou give me, of Judaism, Mormonism, and Nazism. To compli- seeing I go childless. . . . Behold, to me thou hast cate this task, Young also gives her characters given no seed. . . . [And the Lord said] Look now metaphorical biblical names (which represents the toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to challenge of making the old stories new, yet recog- number them . . . So shall thy seed be. And [Abra- nizable as a rendition of the old). The names Abra- ham] believed in the Lord” (Gen. 15:2–3, 5–6). ham, Sarah, and Isaac are indicative of the relations Sarah’s picture can be seen as a type of marriage between these characters and their trials. Compar- license that binds her to Abraham. By keeping the ing these characters to their namesakes and stories picture, Abraham mirrors his namesake’s faith in found in the Bible brings new depth to Young’s God’s promise of astronomical amounts of chil- semi-traditional Holocaust story. dren through Sarah. The artist Sarah, her artwork, The similarities between Young’s Abraham and her potential to be a good artist symbolize the Cohen and Sarah Sinahson and the Bible’s Abra- realization of God’s promise through her, and she ham and Sarah are remarkable. The first similarity eventually bear a son named Isaac. is the arrangement of marriages. Although Sarah is To complicate the story line, however, Young not married to Abraham first (he is her elder and mixes her scriptural allusions with irony. In his principal) as in the Bible, she is the first to have a review of Young’s book, Harlow S. Clark states, “The binding relationship with him. The first time the characters’ spiritual [and physical] lives in House reader sees Sarah and Abraham meet, Abraham without Walls are tinged with deep irony” (part 4). makes the prophetic comment, “‘It seems as though In the Bible, because Abraham and Sarah are unable you and I are destined to know each other well’” to have children in the beginning, Sarah gives Hagar (9). This certainly foreshadows their eventual mar- to Abraham and Hagar bears Ishmael (Gen. 16). riage and child. Sara Sinahson and Abraham Cohen are also unable In the same meeting, Abraham tells Sarah he to bear children in the beginning of House without wishes their future meetings to be about the “artwork” Walls because of their roles and age difference. Sarah has doodled during classes and concerning Thus Abraham’s marrying Deborah Fried, a mar- which he has called her in for discussion. When riage initiated by the customary matchmaker, is a Sarah asks for the confiscated picture, Abraham type of the biblical matchmaker Sarah giving broadly smiles and says “‘There are many artists in Hagar to Abraham. the world today, some good, some bad. But one The irony comes when Deborah is the one never knows which will become famous or why. who has trouble bearing children and is described This little drawing may be quite valuable someday, as being more like the biblical Sarah than Hagar.

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Sarai (Sarah’s first given name) is described simply (141–43). Upon hearing his father’s voice in the by her husband as “a fair woman to look upon,” morning he shrinks and cries: “‘Oh no . . . No, while Deborah is described in more words but with I could never do that to him! Please, Lord, tell him the same implications to beauty: “She was gentle, what you’ve told me! Don’t give me such gifts that graceful, purposeful in all her movements and her make me dance on my father’s heart!’ And to this cheeks glowed like pearls when she smiled” thought came a distinct, almost audible answer: (Young, 49–50; see Gen. 12:11). Hagar, Deborah’s ‘Do you think, my son, that you love Abraham semi-prototype, is simply described as being better than I do?’” (143). This representation of the Egyptian, thus one may assume that her looks were Bible story brings greater understanding of both. nothing extraordinary (see Gen. 16:1). Surely Abraham of old must have thought the Lord Another ironic similarity is seen in the depart- has asked him to do a hard thing, but he was com- ing of Abraham and Deborah compared to the forted in knowing that the Lord loved his son just parting of Abraham and Hagar. The biblical Abra- as much as he did. Furthermore, when the Lord ham is commanded by God to turn Hagar and her stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, He blesses son out on their own “to wander in the wilderness Abraham with countless seed because of his obedi- of Beer-sheba” (Gen. 21:10, 14). Likewise, Deborah ence and because “I know that thou fearest God, is cast out of Abraham’s house by a power stronger seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only than themselves—the Nazis. The wilderness Deborah son from me” (Gen. 22:12). In the end of House must wander is the concentration camps, and, ironi- without Walls Isaac is similarly blessed by his father’s cally, unlike Hagar, she does not survive her consent to let him join the Mormon church and be wilderness. married in the Mormon temple, where the same The last, most obvious similarity between promise that was given to Abraham is given to the Abraham and Sarah in the Bible and in House couple. without Walls has already been stated: that both Clark also observes what he calls a parody of bear a son named Isaac. This simple similarity, the Abraham and Isaac story. While in the concen- however, opens the door for many more similari- tration camp, Abraham is cautioned by a young ties and ironies as the relationship between Young’s partisan to “‘stop being a rabbi because they catch Abraham and Isaac is compared to the biblical you and make you administer the deaths. In some characters. places, the rabbis sit on councils. It is they who The most well-known Bible story of Abraham make up the lists of Jews to be killed’” (Young, 71). and Isaac is Abraham’s commandment to sacrifice Clark states that “putting rabbis in charge of death his son (see Gen. 22). In religious studies this puts lists is a parody of Abraham sacrificing Isaac: if he into perspective God’s sacrifice of his only begotten wants to practice his religion Abraham must sacri- son Jesus Christ. In Young’s novel, a twisted fice others of his faith” (part 4). metaphorical type of the Bible story represents the As Mormons are taught that the Abraham and sacrifice that comes from conversion. The irony, as Isaac story is a type of Christ’s atonement, so too is Clark points out in his review, is that “it is Isaac Young’s version. While speaking of Isaac’s sacrifice who must sacrifice Abraham . . . to follow the God of his father to his conversion, the words of Abra- of Abraham and Isaac” (part 3). ham Cohen come to mind. He has just visited an When Isaac Cohen finds a love interest in the anti-Mormon bookstore and received a pamphlet Mormon church, he begins to explore her beliefs. from a boy whose parents are the Mormon equiva- While their relationship is on hold because of his lent of his Jewish self. Upon leaving, Abraham says father’s disapproval of it, Isaac prays to know if the to himself, “Somewhere an atonement was being Book of Mormon is true (Young, 141). That night wrought. Abraham’s son was replacing the other he has a vivid revelation that the Book of Mormon man’s son in the Mormon faith, and he, Abraham, and the Church are true and Jesus is the Redeemer was bearing the pain of barrenness” (151). Thus

54 Comparing Margaret Blair Young’s House without Walls to the Bible the ex-Mormon youth is a twisted Christ figure forsake old religious traditions and develop new and Isaac Cohen is the equivalent of his namesake traditions under the new religion, and to raise the in this situation. next generation completely within the new tradi- The last two similarities are stated in the text tion, causing them to not know another. Thus the itself. The moral of House without Walls is to follow converting seed that is planted in the first genera- one’s heart, even when tradition and loved ones tion, where it germinates and sprouts, does not resist. Young explores and tries to explain the most reach maturity until the next generation. In House complex concept a Jewish convert to Mormonism without Walls this is primarily seen in Sarah’s con- must face—accepting that Jesus Christ is the Savior verting while in captivity (represented by Nazi and that the Atonement really did happen. (The Germany), her hiding, and her falling away from reader should know that Jews do not believe that the Church once she is free and in the wilderness of the Messiah has come yet because he promised to America. It is her children, however, who, like the free them from physical bondage, something Jesus children of Israel, obtain the Promised Land and did not do. Mormonism teaches that Jesus is the fully accept the gospel. All this is done in the same Messiah and that he freed the Jews and others from way the children of Israel called upon God while in spiritual bondage and will free the Jews from phys- bondage but then forgot once they were set free ical bondage only when he comes the second (Exodus). It is true that Sarah often thinks about time.) Young’s characters compare themselves to her conversion and secretly accepts it, but her unwill- the brothers of Joseph who sold Joseph into Egypt ingness to outwardly show it is like the Israelites as a slave, then came to Egypt for food during the who will not simply look upon the serpent Moses famine but did not recognize their brother who raises to heal their plagues (see Num. 21). had become the governor of the land (see Gen. 42). Young’s metaphors of and allusion to scripture At their converting moment, Sarah and Isaac feel make House without Walls a rich personalization of that as Jews they are the brothers of Joseph who the scriptures and greatly help the reader relate, not cannot recognize him who represents Jesus, in that only to the Bible because the novel characterizes he saves them from the famine (Young, 40, 41). the well-know stories in latter-day terms, but also This analogy puts Jewish ideologies into per- to House without Walls because the reader can relate spective and makes Jewish beliefs easier for Mor- his or her scriptural background knowledge to the mons to understand, enabling Mormons to connect book. While the characters’ emotional levels are the unfamiliar Jewish faith with the familiar Bible successfully related through the text alone, making story of Joseph in Egypt. Jeff Needle, a Jewish con- the familiar scriptural connections is the tool that vert, affirms House without Walls’s accuracy in Jew- unites the reader with the characters from both ish and Mormon matters in his review of the novel: House without Walls and the Bible. Needle also states “I can only guess that the author spoke with Jews in his review that “House without Walls is one of the who, like myself, converted to Christianity, and best LDS novels I’ve ever read. It presents real prob- lived the anger and hurt that ensued. The conver- lems, and offers no simple solutions. The trauma sations between father and son, between Jew and of conversion is presented realistically and painfully. Mormon, are strikingly constructed and very real” No decisions are final; questions about faith and (Opinion). about God permeate the work. Clearly this is a well- The final similarity is the fact that the book considered work, and it accomplishes its purposes” covers forty years (1929–72), which is the same (Opinion). Thus, the elaborate scriptural connec- amount of time Israel was left to wander in the wilder- tions combined with worldly historical concepts and ness after their exodus from Egypt and the time it insights to Judaism create an intensely diversified took to build the Salt Lake Temple, where Isaac and and rich text and make House without Walls a good Elsa Grubbe are married. Forty years, then, seems model for didactic literature. to be the time it takes a converted generation to

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WORKS CITED Clark, Harlow S. “Letting the Temple Burn, Learning from God How to Restore It: Review of House without Walls, by Margaret Young.” Online review, posted to Association for Mormon Letters email list, 9 December 1999. Archived at http://www .aml-online.org/reviews/b/B199959.html, accessed 22 November 2002. Needle, Jeff. Review of House without Walls, by Mar- garet Blair Young. Online review, posted to Associ- ation for Mormon Letters email list, 27 January 1997. Archived at http://www.aml-online.org/reviews /b/B199708.html, accessed 22 November 2002. Young, Margaret Blair. House without Walls. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1991.

56 Stone Tables: Believable Characters in Orson Scott Card’s Historical Fiction

Holly King

n his book Characters and Viewpoint, Orson or for changing major events to create plot twist. IScott Card outlines how to create believable For example, most readers know that at the time of characters and an exciting story line by adhering to Moses’ birth, all male Israelite children were to be certain principles for character development. In his killed and that Moses is instead set afloat in a basket novel Stone Tables, despite specific restrictions on the Nile by his mother and later rescued by the related to history and religion, which cannot be daughter of Pharaoh. Readers undoubtedly under- altered, Card is nevertheless successful in creating stand that although Moses is the son of Israelite imaginative, yet believable characters. His talents slaves, he grows up in Pharaoh’s palace, has to leave are not fully utilized because of these restrictions, after killing an Egyptian, and then comes back as a yet his rendition of the story of Moses and the prophet of God to free his people. If Card were to Israelite nation is engaging and successful. “tweak and twist” such a historical account, readers Most of Card’s works are highly imaginative would definitely notice. He must rely on historical and tell the story of a character that he has con- accounts of the event, thus relying less on his own ceived completely on his own. Therefore, telling imagination. the story of real people at some actual point in time An additional constraint Card faces in creating while portraying real events is a different experi- Stone Tables is that the characters are people from ence altogether. Card first wrote Stone Tables as a history whose life events he is depicting exactly as play while serving an LDS mission in Brazil. When they happened and whose friends and family are Card sent the unfinished two-act dramatic play to clearly named and portrayed in the work. In some his mentor Charles Whitman at Brigham Young of his other novels, Card mirrors historical figures University, Whitman immediately wrote back ask- but does not actually use their names. For example, ing for the remainder of the play and added it to in Seventh Son, the first of The Tales of Alvin Maker, that season’s schedule for BYU’s Pardoe Theater. It although Card alludes to many characteristics and was not until years later when Deseret Book persuaded events in the life of Joseph Smith as he develops the Card to convert the play into a novel that he under- character Alvin Maker, he never actually names took the difficult task of detailed character devel- Joseph or admits that the work has anything to do opment for his version of the story of Moses and with him. In contrast, Stone Tables names Moses, the Israelites. his parents and siblings, and many of the Israelites Stone Tables presents major restrictions to Card’s whose stories are told in the Bible. Card does not imaginative characters and worlds, such as the fact have to convince most readers that even though that most of his readers already know the story of Moses is the son of Israelite slaves he grows up in Moses. Because the story of Moses is so clearly delin- the Pharaoh’s palace. Neither does he have to eated in the Bible, there is no place for suspense persuade readers to believe that the parting of the

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Red Sea actually took place, because most people with the knowledge that he does not belong in the who have read the Bible or heard Bible stories palace and that many people resent him. simply accept such miracles. Moses qualifies even better for the next criterion Although Card is presented with particular that Card imposes with the question, Who has the restrictions for this project and is unable to explore power and freedom to act? (67). Moses is the instru- the dimensions of his characters to the extent that ment of change in various ways throughout the nar- he does in some of his other works, he nevertheless rative. He is the commander of the vast Egyptian manages to use his expertise to develop believable army and a mighty leader at Hatshepsut’s side. He characters. He uses his vivid imagination and his has the power to change things in the world, even own speculations to make up for what is unknown if it is a struggle. The movement in the story fol- from history. lows Moses. Because Moses’ life takes place in Card explores character development with par- so many different settings with so many different ticular detail in both of his how-to books: Charac- people surrounding him, the story has to be told ters and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction from his point of view. For example, when Moses is and Fantasy. He outlines elements that must be forced from Egypt after killing an Egyptian whom utilized to create believable characters and explains he finds beating an Israelite slave, he flees alone how to choose the roles each character will play in into the wilderness. Therefore, the plot must be a story. Card calls the first of these roles the view- advanced from Moses’ thoughts, feelings, and point character. In Stone Tables, Card chooses Moses actions—in other words, from his viewpoint. as the viewpoint character because, as he states in Card suggests that the most important part of his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, creating a character is to show through words and such a character “must be present at the main actions the personality and motives of each charac- events, must be actively involved in those events, ter. He explains in Character and Viewpoint that “if and must have a personal stake in the outcome readers know a character’s actions, motives, past, even though the outcome depends on the main reputation, relationships, habits, talents, and tastes, character’s choices” (73). Moses is the obvious they’ll . . . feel as if they know the person” (13). choice because he qualifies for all three criteria. Card knows how to show—rather than simply tell— In this same passage of Characters and View- what happens. He uses the characters’ thoughts, point, Card discusses the process of choosing which words, actions, and relationships to carry the nar- character will function as the protagonist and rative and advance the plot. He allows the reader whether this same character will also become the to enter the minds of the characters. For example, main character and the viewpoint character. He asks much can be learned about Moses’ brother Aaron certain questions about the characters in order to from this one passage of dialogue: choose these roles. One question is, Who suffers “Maybe I am ambitious,” said Aaron. “Grow- the most? In the story of Moses, the answer to that ing up a slave, growing up hearing Mother and question could be the Israelite slaves. After all, Father and Miriam talk all the time about how Moses does grow up in Pharaoh’s palace, with all of you were the chosen one, you were the hope of his needs and desires met, and does not suffer to Israel, yes, I did, I wanted to be the one, I prayed the extent that the Israelites suffer. He trains as a to God to let me be the one to set Israel free. But soldier and becomes strong according to his own I grew up, Moses, something you might want will, not as a slave to others, and is not forced to to try, and I realized that I wasn’t the chosen one and so all I could do was try my best to get participate in heavy labor. Although Moses may you to do what God has prepared you to do.” (71) not suffer as much as the slaves, he has other trials that draw the readers’ sympathy. His life is spared In another passage of Characters and Viewpoint, when the daughter of Pharaoh takes him from the Card suggests that aspiring authors need to “use river, yet he is deprived of his own family and lives every ounce of skill [they] have, every technique

58 Stone Tables: Believable Characters in Orson Scott Card’s Fiction

[they] have learned . . . to help readers discover Hatshepsut makes her completely unique—the only how important and truthful [their] story is, to help “daughter of Pharaoh” who would have had the them understand” (16). Although the majority of power, completely on her own, to make such an those who read Stone Tables are probably already adoption have force” (xiv). Such insights into the convinced that the story of Moses freeing his history of the Pharaohs of Egypt supply Card with people from Egyptian bondage is important and the background he needs to fully develop the char- truthful, Card is able to use his storytelling expert- acter of Hatshepsut and to reveal her relationship ise and clever imagination to bring the story to life with Moses and others of her court. and make the characters interesting and believable. Card also reveals in Characters and Viewpoint Card no doubt realizes the responsibility he has to his belief that by the time readers finish a story they readers to keep the story as closely in line with the “want to know your characters better than any actual occurrences as possible, yet hold readers’ human being ever knows any other human being” attention and mark the story with his special touch (4). Card’s fictional Moses gives readers insights of imaginative flare. into how Moses may have felt when he came to the The restrictions posed by the story of Moses as knowledge that he was the son of slaves and how he historical fiction could definitely limit the overall may have felt when he finally realized that he was development of each character, but this does not God’s chosen servant, called to perform the enor- completely hinder Card. What most people do not mous and daunting task of freeing the children of know is that the identity of the Pharaoh of Moses’ Israel from bondage. Card adds a new perspective time is uncertain. The Bible says that the Pharaoh— to the story by not characterizing Moses as a majes- who rules when Moses kills the Egyptian and flees tic prophet figure. He instead shows the reader the into the desert—is a man. The incident is recorded human qualities of the prophet Moses. For example, in the Bible in Exodus 2:15, “Now when Pharaoh Card illuminates Moses not only in his role as a heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But prophet but also in his journey to become such. Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh.” Card uses The reader is allowed glimpses into Moses’ early every piece of historical information and educated life, such as the squabbles he has with his siblings, guessing he can get his hands on to develop the nar- his courtship with Zeforah (the daughter of a Mid- rative. He adds his own speculations and research ianite priest), his initial lack of faith in himself and of the story to create enough of a twist to make it in God, and eventually his frustration with the interesting, yet not enough to throw the entire iniquities among the tribes of Israel—including his story off course. struggle to keep them from turning from the very The ambiguity of historical records as to which God who has released them from bondage. Card Pharaoh is linked with Moses allows Card a little also displays the intricacies of Moses’ relationships freedom to use his imagination and add a dimen- with both of his mothers, with his siblings, with his sion to the story that is new and exciting. Card’s wife, and eventually his relationship to the nation Pharaoh is Moses’ Egyptian mother, who has been of Israel as their leader, the prophet of God. ‘transformed’ into a man by her father in order to In his review of Stone Tables, Michael Martin- inherit the throne. In the preface to Stone Tables, dale describes Card’s Moses as “down-to-earth, real- Card refers to the book Return to Sodom and Gomor- istic, and sometimes even casual” ([1]). He says that rah, written by Charles Pellegrino, who speculates Card does not ignore details like some depictions that Hatshepsut (a daughter of one of the Egyptian of the story of Moses have in the past, such as Cecil B. Pharaohs) is linked with Moses. Card further explains DeMille’s classic movie The Ten Commandments, in the preface that he was “always bothered by the which features Charlton Heston. Martindale asserts story of the daughter of Pharaoh being able to take that Card’s Moses “was . . . slow in . . . speech to a baby out of the water and adopt him as her son” a . . . fault” and that “Card serves up an excellent (xiv). Card emphasizes that “the political life of justification for Moses’ speech impediment: he was

59 AML Annual 2004 bilingual (Hebrew and Egyptian), but speaking WORKS CITED Hebrew would brand him as a slave. So Moses had Card, Orson Scott. Characters and Viewpoint. Cincin- to constantly be on guard to speak the politically nati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1988. correct language” ([1]). Martindale points out that ———. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. such a portrayal humanizes the character of Moses, Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1990. helping readers to better relate to and sympathize ———. Seventh Son. New York: T. Doherty Associates, with him. Martindale also mentions that Moses 1988. “comes across as another Orson Scott Card charac- ———. Stone Tables. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, ter, right along with the adult Ender Wiggin and 1997. Alvin Maker. This book has the feel of Card all Martindale, D. Michael. “Move Over, Charlton Heston; over it” ([1]). He resolves that “considering the Card’s Moses Is John Wayne.” Online review of novel is not only historical fiction, but scriptural Stone Tables, by Orson Scott Card, posted to Asso- historical fiction, that might not be such a good ciation for Mormon Letters email list, 5 August thing.” This comment by Martindale suggests that 2000. Archived at http://www.aml-online.org/ reviews/b/B200051.html, accessed 22 November even though Stone Tables maps the life of an actual 2002. historical figure, Card puts his personal stamp on the story. By using the very principles he outlines in his how-to books, Orson Scott Card creates masterful imaginative dialogue and description to “show the story” rather than simply tell it, and he develops believable characters that engage the reader in an exciting narrative of Moses and the Israelites despite the restrictions inherent in portraying the lives of actual historical figures.

60 Out of the Mouth of Babes: An Analysis of Orson Scott Card’s Use of Dialogue in Ender’s Game

Casey Vanderhoef

rson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is a unique external dialogue to illustrate his characters’ thought Opiece of science fiction that is both engaging processes and personalities. This style is most appar- and reflectively deep. It combines multiple layers ent in the development of the novel’s protagonist, of meaning with a surface level that appeals to all Ender Wiggin. In Ender, Card frequently uses inter- types of readers. One element in the novel that helps nal and external dialogue as a contrast to illustrate create this dexterity is Card’s masterful use of dia- the dynamics and complexity of the character. The logue. The dialogue in this novel works so effectively internal dialogue shows Ender’s internal motivations as a textual tool mainly because of the range of pur- and persona, while the external is used as a tool to poses it serves. More specifically, it aids in not only cause people to react to him the way he wants them character development but also plot advancement to. This illustrates the complexity of Ender. The and character realism. The reason Card’s dialogue internal and external dialogue causes the reader to is capable of covering all these areas is that the understand the character more and to create a strong approach from which it is written creates a “show relation with him. without telling” effect. William Tapply, an accom- Early in the book Ender is confronted by a gang plished author most known for his series of twelve of young bullies who try to rough him up. The ini- mystery novels called The Snake Eater, writes: “Truly tial internal dialogue enables Ender to exhibit his effective dialogue, like all writing, shows without strategic thought process: “I have to win this now; telling. It works, like an effective film scene, through and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will pictures and dialogue alone. The writer is invisible. get worse.” Then the action ensues as Ender physi- What is not stated shows as much about the char- acter as what is said” (8). As a result of this tech- cally disables the leader of the group. The external nique, the reader hears the story from the voices of dialogue that immediately follows is aimed at the dynamic and flamboyant characters, allowsing him remaining boys in the group: “‘You might be having or her to experience the novel more completely. some idea of ganging up on me. You could probably The first manner Card uses dialogue as a tool beat me up pretty bad. But just remember what I is in developing characters. Dr. James McKinley, a do to people who try to hurt me.’” After that Ender professor of English at the University of Missouri– reverts back to internal dialogue to resolve the con- Kansas City, comments: “Dialogue is a main means flict within himself: “I’m just like Peter, take away by which characters feel and behave, the way they my monitor, and I am just like Peter” (Card, 7). Card express the node or action center of their scene” uses this exchange of intellectual assessment, false (13). Card’s characterization through dialogue con- projection, and self-internalization to develop a pat- struction illustrates McKinley’s point but also adds tern that shows the reader who Ender is and how an extra twist to it. Card uses both internal and he thinks.

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By illustrating how systematically Ender’s mind at the beginning of transitional chapters, the dia- works, his precise execution of strategy and his logue signifies upcoming events, Ender’s develop- deep-seeded emotional conflicts, Card prepares the ment in his training, and the gravity of the task for reader for what Ender encounters later in the novel, which he is preparing. along with setting up the reasons he sees the world A good illustration of this comes at the begin- the way he does. Card maintains the same pattern ning of chapter 7, shortly after Ender arrives at of contrastive internal/external dialogue with Battle School. Upon his arrival, Ender is socially Ender to make his physical, social, and emotional isolated intentionally by Colonel Graff, causing him progressions as a character more evident. to be ostracized by the rest of the boys and serving Also, toward the end of the novel, Card uses as a test of his abilities as a leader. Overcoming this, internal and external dialogue patterns to create an Ender begins winning the trust and friendship of additional layer in Ender’s characterization. For his peers, but he seems to be constantly put in unfair instance, after Ender experiences some success as a positions by his commanders. The chapter starts commander in Battle School, many of the older boys with the plot-advancing dialogue between Colonel become jealous. To appease their battered pride, a Graff and Major Anderson. Anderson begins the group of the older boys trap Ender in the shower dialogue with a question and then Graff responds; room. The leader of the group, Bonzo, gives Ender the two alternate from there: the advantage he needs by deciding to fight him “Does it ever seem to you that these boys one on one in order to preserve his honor. Ender’s aren’t children? I look at what they do, the way internal dialogue show the reader his assessment of they talk, and they don’t seem like kids.” the situation: “Where are the teachers? Don’t they “They’re the most brilliant children in the realize that the first contact between us in this fight world, each in his own way.” might be the end of it?” Ender next projects the “But shouldn’t they act like children? They persona he schemes and externally muses: “’Bonzo, aren’t normal.” don’t hurt me. . . . Please.’” This enrages his attacker “We’re trying to save the world, not heal and causes him to charge and fall into Ender’s trap. the wounded heart. You’re too compassionate.” Ender quickly catches the boy in the nose with a (Card, 67) head butt, instantly killing him. After the brutal display of force from one so young, Ender’s internal Analytically, this exchange shows the logic of the dialogue again provides resolution to the incident: instructors at the school. The “show without “Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, telling” style of dialogue, in this sense, sets a tone always right; the power to cause pain is the only for the following chapter and prepares the reader for power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, the action soon to occur. In this specific example, because if you can’t kill then you are always subject the dialogue prepares the reader for the roles that to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever Card’s main characters are being prepared for—the save you” (Card, 210). This internal resolution role of soldiers, not children. illustrates progression or character movement. The last (and most effective) way Card uses The next way Card uses dialogue is in plot dialogue in Ender’s Game is to create realism. The advancement and foreshadowing. Before every sig- idea behind Ender’s Game presents a very difficult nificant plot progression, Card prefaces it with a task for an author. Card builds a plot centered around dialogue between the adult supervisors of Ender, a world where children possess the intellects of usually the head commander of his battle school, adults and begin military training at a young age in Colonel Graff, and his second-in-command, Major order to prepare for the daunting task of saving the Anderson. This display of dialogue also follows the world. Card could have set this stage by simply “show without telling” style, by foreshadowing explaining the situation to the reader through Ender’s next move in the plot. Mostly appearing some type of narration. This method would have

62 An Analysis of Orson Scott Card’s Use of Dialogue in Ender’s Game proven easy and quick and allowed Card to begin on the method in which it was shown. The dia- developing the rest of the story. The down side logue allows the children, and the world they are would have been that the plot and characterization surrounded by, to be magnified by contrast. Card context would not have resonated very deeply is also able to maintain consistency as he keeps the inside of the reader. Card chose to use a much reader’s mind aware of the plot’s structure by giving more challenging method of presenting the novel’s traces of this type of dialogue throughout the novel. foundational facts—by illustrating them through In another scene later in the book, Ender’s the characters’ dialogue. This textual approach is Dragon Army is preparing for a battle against an far more difficult than narrator explanation and army that has twice the manpower his does. Bean, requires a strong sense of consistency throughout one of Ender’s Toon leaders, prepares to launch the the novel, but it makes the plot much more believ- first assault on the larger group when they begin able and tangible to the reader. Card’s brilliance taunting him: “As if to corroborate Bean’s state- really shines in his demonstration of this trait. ment, the enemy began to call out to them. ‘Hey! Card successfully plants his plot structure in We be hungry, come and feed us! Your ass is drag- the mind of the reader by having the children he gin! Your ass is Dragon’” (Card, 215). This again uses for characters constantly engage in topically shows how in a serious environment, the children adult conversation. Their conversations reflect still express their youth through their language and complex theoretical issues, apocalyptic stresses, and adolescent wordplay. mature adult relationships. This kind of dialogue The dialogue in this novel represents a handrail creates a picture of intelligent people being trained that Card uses to guide the reader through the ideas for something important and unique. Card next the novel presents. Academically and analytically it adds a wrinkle in his dialogue by making it believ- serves as a tool for laying essential groundwork in able to the reader that these supreme intellects exist characterization, plot, and structure. The combina- in the bodies of children. In the mist of philosoph- tion of these three styles creates a surface level that ical debates on military strategies and the art of has a lasting effect: it makes the novel fun. It gives war, Card slips in childish vulgarities and slang that the novel a voice and personality that stays with the give the children a language of their own and con- reader long after he or she has finished the book. In sequently sells the plot to the readers. Readers find an interview Card once revealed one of his reasons realism in the fact that the dialogue reflects the way for writing, commenting: “I want to reach people children distort language to make it their own in who read books for the sheer pleasure of it, because order to express their individualism. those are the people who are open to having their This is shown when Ender is first learning to lives changed by what they read” (qtd. in Ciporen, maneuver in the vastly important Battle Room, the 51). This represents the combining effects of place where the children’s military futures are deter- Orson Scott Card’s use of dialogue, which makes mined. Ender and his friend Alai are inventing the novel more enjoyable for the reader. strategies of movement that will develop necessary skills and abilities to help them survive in this highly competitive game. While doing this, they decide to WORKS CITED race. Ender speaks first, followed by Alai: Card, Orson S. Ender’s Game. New York: Tom Doherty “You win.” Associates, 1985. “I want to see your fart collection,” Alai said. Ciporen, Laura. “PW Talks with Orson Scott Card.” “I stored it in your locker. Didn’t you notice?” Publishers Weekly 7 (2000): 51. McKinley, James. “Writing Dialogue That Speaks to “I thought it was my socks.” (Card, 60) the Reader.” Writer 106.8 (1993): 13–16. This juvenile banter effectively typecasts the char- Tapply, William G. “Dialogue That Shows—without acters’ age, which is internalized by the reader based Telling.” Writer 107.3 (1994): 7–11.

63 Subversion and Containment in Xenocide

Daniel K. Muhlestein

rson Scott Card’s Xenocide (1991) is a pecu- Many apparently orthodox cultural texts, he observes, Oliar book. Although it occupies the space plant the seeds of revolution. They describe some- between Speaker for the Dead (1986) and Children thing, or do something, which poses a potential threat of the Mind (1996), much of the plot of Xenocide to an important aspect of the culture of which they revolves around a cluster of characters that are new are a part—a threat to a dominant institution, per- to the saga, and the book’s emotional center of haps, or to a prevailing ideology. In that sense they gravity is less Ender Wiggin than Han Qing-jao. are subversive texts. King Lear—to choose an obvi- Further, although Xenocide received a Hugo nomi- ous example—is a subversive play insofar as it calls nation, its critical reception has been surprisingly into question the ideology of the divine right of kings mixed, with one reviewer grumbling about the and describes the carnage that follows a king gone book’s “frequent, irksome, and interminable theo- awry. At the same time, Greenblatt continues, such logical / philosophical interludes” (Review of Xeno- texts work overtime to control the subversion they cide, 699). But if Kirkus Reviews was partly in the are creating, to lock it down, to contain it in the right, it was also wholly in the wrong: the most sense in which a prison contains a prisoner. They perplexing thing about Xenocide is not the sudden create a threat in order to destroy it, and in doing emergence of some grand theology but rather the so they reinforce the very ideologies and institu- way in which that theology is employed. More than tions that they put at risk. Thus, King Lear—to any other novel in the Ender Wiggin series, Xeno- continue the example—subverts the notion of king- cide wrestles with fundamental questions of faith ship precisely in order to reaffirm it. and free will. And it does so by way of a rhetorical strategy that is interesting and powerful but not But if King Lear represents subversion and con- always entirely successful. This strategy is not new; tainment at work, Xenocide shows subversion and it can be found in texts ranging from Beowulf to containment gone astray. The novel describes the Ulysses (1922). But the critic who describes it most life, death, and rebirth of a religious community succinctly is the New Historicist Stephen Greenblatt, comprised of the people of the planet Path. At the whose essay “Invisible Bullets: Renaissance Author- center of their religious life are the godspoken: men ity and Its Subversion” is thus a helpful place to and women to whom the gods are said to manifest begin an exploration of what goes wrong—and themselves through what appear to be obsessive- right—in Xenocide. Helpful and oddly appropriate: compulsive disorders. In the Catalogue of Voices of Greenblatt writes from within the Marxist tradition, the Gods, for example, Door-Waiting, Counting- and Card’s novel describes a civilization whose roots to-Multiples-of-Five, Object-Counting, Checking- go back to Mao Tse-tung. for-Accidental-Murders, Fingernail-Tearing, In “Invisible Bullets” Greenblatt describes a pro- Skin-Scraping, Pulling-Out-of-Hair, Gnawing-at- cess commonly called “subversion and containment.” Stone, and Bugging-Out-of-Eyes are all identified

65 AML Annual 2004 as penances demanded by the gods, rituals of obe- composed of men and women, who may do dience that cleanse the souls of the godspoken so good and evil.” that the gods can fill their minds with wisdom “Now you’re nearer the truth. We can’t do (Xenocide, 51). In spite of the odd nature of their crimes in the service of Congress, because Con- religious rituals, however, the people of Path face gress makes the laws. But if Congress ever many of the same challenges encountered by became evil, then in obeying them we might other—more earthbound—religious communities: also be doing evil. . . . However, if that hap- pened, Congress would surely lose the man- they must translate evidence of divinity into rules date of heaven. And we, the godspoken, don’t of conduct; they must mediate between science have to wait and wonder about the mandate of and religion and between religion and politics; and heaven, as others do. If Congress ever loses the they must find a way to transmit their faith from mandate of the gods, we will know at once.” one generation to the next. In these respects the “So you lied for Congress because Congress people of Path are like people of faith everywhere. had the mandate of heaven.” In describing the people of Path, Xenocide “And therefore I knew that to help them explores a number of important philosophical keep their secret was the will of the gods for the issues, including the nature of education, of his- good of the people.” (90–91) tory, and of obedience. In the process it tests—and Midway through Xenocide, however, Han Fei- appears to prove true—four subversive hypotheses tzu becomes convinced there is no heaven, there is about the nature of religion. The first hypothesis is no mandate, and the way of Path is a lie propagated the same one Greenblatt discusses in his reading by a tyrannical government. He becomes convinced, of Thomos Harlot’s A Brief and True Report of the in short, of the Machiavellian view of religion: New Found Land Virginia (1588): it is the Machia- “We, the godspoken,” cries Han Fei-Tzu, “are not vellian theory that religion is a political tool of the hearing gods at all. We have been altered geneti- ruling class. Early in Xenocide the link between cally . . . [to perform absurd, humiliating rituals]— obedience to the gods and obedience to the gov- and the only reason I can think of is that it keeps us ernment is stated—in positive terms—by Han Fei- under control, keeps us weak. . . . It’s a monstrous tzu, the most honored of the godspoken. In the crime. . . . We are the slaves here! Congress is our following passage he is speaking with his daughter, most terrible enemy, our masters, our deceivers” Qing-jao, who has just discovered that he has been (289). Perhaps more importantly, Han Fei-tzu’s con- lying to the people of Path on behalf of the politi- clusions about the way of Path are shared by Ender cal rulers: “‘Just as the gods speak only to a chosen Wiggin, the protagonist in the series and the char- few,’” declares Han Fei-tzu, acter who typically articulates Card’s perspective. “so the secrets of the rulers must be known Subsequent events—including the release of a virus only to those who will use the knowledge which cures the godspoken of their behavior—appear properly. . . . The only way to retrieve a secret, to justify both Han Fei-tzu’s assertions and Machia- once it is known, is to replace it with a lie; velli’s theory. Indeed, only one of the godspoken— then the knowledge of the truth is once again Qing-jao—continues to believe that her obsessive- your secret.” . . . compulsive behavior is a form of purification sent “If we can lie in the service of the gods, by the gods. Her continued faith, however, ulti- what other crimes can we commit?” mately serves a subversive function as well, for it “‘What is a crime?” points toward—and seems to prove true—a second “An act that’s against the law.” subversive hypothesis about the nature of religion. “What law?” This hypothesis concerns the power of hege- “I see—Congress makes the law, so the mony, especially religious hegemony. In his Prison law is whatever Congress says. But Congress is Notebooks (1992) Antonio Gramsci defines hegemony

66 Subversion and Containment in Xenocide in terms of class warfare. A given class can gain Congress manipulated her genes into spiritual evi- power, he says, by consent as well as coercion. It can dence of the handiwork of the gods. Every proof— do so by disseminating its particular class-based that is to say—that the government engineered her ideology throughout society and then persuading obsessive-compulsive behavior reciprocally con- the other classes to accept that ideology as the Truth. firms Qing-jao’s belief that the hands of the gods Universalize, Gramsci says, naturalize, and conquer. were upon her and that the gods are using science Later, critics built upon Gramsci’s theory, and today to conceal their work. The more the scientists prove the term hegemony means “a society’s dominant her wrong, the harder she works to transform their system of meanings, practices, and values.” Hege- critique into proof. mony is what most people believe. It also describes When presented with evidence of genetic manipu- how most people act. Hegemony is more than lation, for example, Qing-jao retorts, “‘Don’t you mere ideology; it is ideology in action, ideology as see? This genetic difference in us—it’s the disguise it is put into practice by those who believe it. And the gods have given for their voices in our lives. So when people live an ideology as the Truth, they that people who are not of the Path will still be free generally do so in a very specific way: they attempt to disbelieve’” (290). When she is infected with a to act upon their beliefs in precisely such a way virus designed to counteract the effects of the genetic as to insure that their actions ratify their beliefs. manipulation, she reasons: They act—that is to say—in such a way as to con- And if the gods wished to stop speaking to the firm reciprocally the validity of their beliefs, whether people of Path, then this might well be the dis- those beliefs are factually true or not. Hence the guise they had chosen for their act. Let it seem equation, Hegemony = Ideology + Action + Recip- to the unbeliever that Father’s Lusitanian virus rocal Confirmation. cuts us off from the gods; I will know, as will all The story of Qing-jao is a textbook example of other faithful men and women, that the gods religious hegemony at work. Qing-jao’s most impor- speak to whomever they wish, and nothing made by human hands could stop them if they tant ideology is her belief that the gods speak through so desired. All their acts were vanity. If Congress her. Her most important actions are those of obe- believed that they had caused the gods to speak dience, of living properly the life of a godspoken. on Path, let them believe it. If Father and the Those actions ratify her ideology; they confirm her Lusitanians believe that they are causing the gods belief that she is an instrument of the gods. And to fall silent, let them believe it. I know that if the lynchpin in this process is a binary which jux- I am only worthy of it, the gods will speak to taposes religion to science and views scientific the- me. (581) ories and evidence as a heaven-sent screen or cover, Even when the virus produces its intended a divinely inspired way of concealing the deeper effect and causes Qing-jao to lose her disorder, truth of religion. Her father first states this binary: after a moment of agonizing doubt she interprets “The gods are the cause of everything that happens,” the success of the virus as yet another evidence he observes, “but they never act except in disguise”— of the gods’ hidden power. “She could not bear the disguise being the fortuitous appearance of [her father’s] embrace”—by this point in the novel a scientific explanation (Xenocide, 148). The belief Han Fei-tzu has rejected the way of Path, and he that the gods hide their actions from the eyes of the is the one who has infected her with the virus— unbelievers behind a cloud of natural laws and She could not endure it because it would mean scientific explanations thus becomes the defining his complete victory. It would mean that she tenet of Qing-jao’s faith: “Qing-jao knew that she had been defeated by the enemies of the gods. . . . must listen [to the scientific explanations] with one It would mean that all Qing-jao’s worship for question in mind. What do the gods mean by all these years had meant nothing. . . . It would this?” (292). On the basis of that tenet Qing-jao mean that Mother was not waiting for her when transforms every piece of scientific evidence that at last she came to the Infinite West.

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Why don’t you speak to me, O Gods! she he had been proudest of all of the fact that he cried out silently. Why don’t you assure me that had accomplished his oath to Jiang-qing. This I have not served you in vain all these years? was not an easy accomplishment, to bring up Why have you deserted me now, and given the his daughter so piously that she never went triumph to your enemies? through a period of doubt or rebellion against And then the answer came to her, as simply the gods. True, there were other children just as and dearly as if her mother had whispered the pious—but their piety was usually accom- words in her ear: This is a test, Qing-jao. The plished at the expense of their education. Han gods are watching what you do. Fei-tzu had let Qing-jao learn everything, and A test. Of course. The gods were testing all then had so deftly led her understanding of it their servants on Path, to see which ones were that all fit well with her faith in the gods. deceived and which endured in perfect obedience. Now he had reaped his own sowing. He If I am being tested, then there must be had given her a worldview that so perfectly some correct thing for me to do. . . . She preserved her faith that now, when he had dis- dropped to her knees. She found a wood-grain covered that the gods “voices” were nothing line, and began to trace it [which is her but the genetic chains with which Congress obsessive-compulsive behavior]. had shackled them, nothing could convince There was no answering gift of release, no her.... sense of rightness; but that did not trouble her, “I wish dogs had torn my tongue out before because she understood that this was part of I taught you to think that way.” (478–79, 525) the test. (587–88) Having tested and apparently proven both In its description of Qing-jao, then, Xenocide both Machiavelli’s critique and Gramsci’s theory, Xeno- tests and appears to prove true a second subversive cide then proceeds to test yet a third subversive hypothesis about religion: the hypothesis that a reli- hypothesis about the nature of religion: that when gious hegemony can become so powerful that it can people of faith are confronted with evidence that transform even contradictory evidence into confir- what they believe is false, they invariably attempt mation of belief. To insure that readers do not some- to preserve their faith by retreating from reason to how miss the point, Ender spells it out for them: emotion. Not surprisingly, Qing-jao’s actions provide Qing-jao, I know you well, thought Ender. an obvious example of just such a psychological You are such a bright one, but the light you see defense mechanism at work. When she confronts by comes entirely from the stories of your evidence that her obsessive-compulsive behavior gods. . . . Most people are able to hold most sto- has been caused by genetic manipulation, Qing-jao ries they’re told in abeyance, to keep a little dis- tance between the story and their inmost heart. retreats from her head to her heart: But . . . for you, Qing-jao—the terrible lie has Qing-jao knew that these were all the lies of a become the self-story, the tale that you must seducer. For the one thing she could not doubt believe if you are to remain yourself. . . . I know was the voice of the gods inside her. Hadn’t she you, Qing-jao, and I expect you to behave no felt that awful need to be purified? Hadn’t differently than you do. . . . Few who are cap- she felt the joy of successful worship when her tured by such a powerful story are ever able to rituals were complete? Her relationship with win free of it. (307) the gods was the most certain thing in her life; and anyone who denied it, who threatened to Interestingly Xenocide uses families, what Louis take it away from her, had to be not only her Althusser calls “Ideological State Apparatuses,” to enemy, but the enemy of heaven. (301) transmit such powerful, and powerfully perverse, stories from one generation to the next: “Until a This is a particularly poignant passage, one few weeks ago,” laments Han Fei-tzu near the end that helps make Qing-jao a very sympathetic char- of the novel, acter. By the end of the novel, however, what was

68 Subversion and Containment in Xenocide at first touching has become tragic, for the most philosophy and religion. The most substantial threat certain part of Qing-jao’s life has proven damnably to religion per se, however, is the ease with which wrong, and her quick shift from reason to feeling is Qing-jao turns contradictory evidence into evidence revealed as a false step, a dangerous retreat. of divine province. What matters here is not just Subversion upon subversion upon subversion. Qing-jao’s way of confirming her faith but the whole And Xenocide is not done yet. In its exploration of process of reciprocal confirmation itself. If religious the dynamics of hegemony the novel tests yet a hegemony can become so powerful that it can con- fourth subversive hypothesis. This time, though, firm even Qing-jao’s beliefs, and confirm them in the stakes are, if not higher, at least broader. The the face of, indeed precisely because of, an enormous issue is epistemology, and the question is whether amount of evidence to the contrary, then it can poten- one can discover truth of any kind, be it religious tially confirm any religious belief; and if it can do or secular. The buggers pose the question in its that, if religious hegemony can potentially confirm most fundamental form. “Maybe we’re the fools,” all belief, then all reciprocal confirmation is neces- they muse, “for thinking we know things. Maybe sarily suspect. Whatever else readers may think humans are the only ones who can deal with the of Xenocide, they can surely agree on this point: it fact that nothing can ever be known at all” (317). produces the subversion half of the subversion / Qing-jao herself wonders whether in the final containment dialectic, and it does so in spades. analysis either external evidence or powerful emo- tions can be truly reliable guides. After all, does not what they “mean” ultimately depend upon the frame II. of reference within which they are interpreted? But what of containment? Does Xenocide produce What if she was wrong? How could she know that as well? Is Machiavelli overthrown, religion jus- anything? Whether everything Jane said was tified, free will proven and demonstrated? In part, true or everything she said was false, the same yes. For although Qing-jao is never able to depart evidence would lie before her. Qing-jao would the way of Path, others are, including both her feel exactly as she felt now, whether it was the father and her secret maid, Si Wang-Mu, a working gods or some brain disorder causing the feel- class foil to Qing-jao who is equal parts sister, double, ing. (304–5) and replacement. By counterbalancing Qing-jao This is a moment of authentic agony in the novels with Han Fei-tzu and Wang-mu, Xenocide makes well as one of authentic subversion, a sudden sun- clear that reciprocal confirmation sometimes fails burst of aporia in which even the trace of truth, to and that not all believers abandon reason at the first use Barbara Johnson’s provocative phrase, becomes sign of trouble. Nevertheless, this character-driven untraceable. attempt at containment is surprisingly tentative and Church as a tool of the state, the power of provisional in part because Han Fei-tzu is not nearly hegemony, religion as retreat, aporia: all are subver- as compelling a character as Qing-jao; nor is Wang- sive impulses in Xenocide. All reverberate outside of mu, though readers with a proletarian bent prob- the text as well. For what is ultimately at stake in ably wish she were: neither Qing-jao’s father nor Xenocide is not the way of Path but rather religion her double has anything like Qing-jao’s stage pres- in general. That is, the issues raised by the novel are ence. Further, although their abandonment of the clearly portable issues, as relevant to Card as to Qing- way of Path underscores the limits of religious hege- jao, to Christians as to the godspoken. Certainly, mony, both Han Fei-tzu and Wang-mu become Machiavelli is no stranger to earthbound debates stout defenders of the Machiavellian view of reli- over the covert relationship between religion and gion. And although both characters choose reason politics. Christianity has long been accused of over emotion, that choice leads them to cast off their hiding behind emotion, and discussions of aporia religion like so much dead weight. Thus, although are a commonplace in contemporary analysis of Han Fei-tzu and Wang-mu are interesting foils for

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Qing-jao, neither does much to contain the sub- Ender laughed again. But Miro . . . was version that lies at the heart of Xenocide. Appar- outraged. . . . ently, apostates are not especially good defenders of “Calm down,” Ender said. the faith. “No,” Miro shouted. “My puppeteer is For that Xenocide brings in the heavy hitters: making me furious!” (385–86) Ender Wiggin and Jane, a computer entity which After a moment of lightheartedness, however, has achieved sentience. And in a series of discus- Ender turns deadly serious by responding to the sions—those “frequent, irksome, and interminable argument against free will with a counterclaim of theological / philosophical interludes” noted by his own. Man has free will, he asserts, but precisely Kirkus Reviews—Ender makes a spirited defense of and only because he has always already existed: the doctrine of free will, a doctrine which (if it can I think that we are free, and I don’t think it’s be proven true) is capable of overthrowing Machia- just an illusion that we believe in because it has velli and Marx alike, capable of justifying the belief survival value. And I think we’re free because that truth does not merely exist but is accessible. we aren’t just this body, acting out a genetic Interestingly, Ender’s first attempt at containment script. And we aren’t some soul that God cre- begins in subversion; he initially plays the devil’s ated out of nothing. We’re free because we advocate, reiterating various ways in which philoso- always existed. Right back from the beginning phers explain—and explain away—free will: of time, only there was no beginning of time so we existed all along. Nothing ever caused us. “Either we’re free or we’re not,” said Miro. “Either We simply are, and we always were. (386) the story’s true or it isn’t.” “The point is that we have to believe that Ender’s first attempt at containment, then, comes it’s true in order to live as civilized human by way of a grounding assumption which can be beings,” said Ender. neither proven nor disproven, an assumption which “No, that’s not the point at all,” said Miro. is Mormon orthodoxy—Card’s own faith—par “Because if it’s a lie, why should we bother to excellence: “The mind or the intelligence which live as civilized human beings?” man possesses,” wrote Joseph Smith, is co-eternal “Because the species has a better chance to with God himself; “the intelligence of spirits had survive if we do,” said Ender. “Because our no beginning, neither will it have an end” (Smith, genes require us to believe the story in order to 353). Ender’s second attempt at containment enhance our ability to pass those genes on for comes by way of a similarly orthodox Mormon many generations in the future. Because any- definition of the nature and purposes of God. A body who doesn’t believe the story begins to act real god, observes Ender, would have no patience in unproductive, uncooperative ways, and for hegemonic systems or ways of enforcing obedi- eventually the community, the herd, will reject ence. He would already have all the control he him and his opportunities for reproduction would need or want. And his work and his glory will be diminished—for instance, he’ll be put would be to help, to teach, to lift, to improve: “So in jail—and the genes leading to his unbeliev- let me tell you,” Ender declares, ing behavior will eventually be extinguished.” “what I think about gods. I think a real god is “So the puppeteer requires that we believe not going to be so scared or angry that he tries that we’re not puppets. We’re forced to believe in to keep other people down. . . . A real god free will.” doesn’t care about control. A real god already “Or so Valentine explained it to me.” has control of everything that needs control- “But she doesn’t really believe that, does ling. Real gods would want to teach you how she?” to be just like them.” (Xenocide, 412) “Of course she doesn’t. Her genes won’t A real god, in short, would not merely allow but let her.” also guarantee the free agency of his subjects. He

70 Subversion and Containment in Xenocide would be much like a parent who loves and seeks to” (“Finer Points,” I, 27). Yet that is evidently what to persuade but never forces. As Wang-mu, who has happens to Qing-jao. In some prefatory remarks by this point in the novel become Ender’s student, about Xenocide Card recalls that puts it, a chance meeting with James Cryer . . . led What were the gods, then? They would want directly to the story of Li Qing-jao and Han everyone else to know and have and be all good Fei-tzu at the heart of this book. Learning that things. They would teach and share and train, he was a translator of Chinese poetry, I asked but never force. him . . . if he could give me a few plausible Like my parents, thought Wang-mu. . . . names for some Chinese characters I was devel- That was it. That’s what the gods would be. . . . oping. . . . My idea for these characters was for They would want everyone else to have all that them to play a fairly minor, though meaning- was good in life, just like good parents. But ful, role in the story of Xenocide. But as James unlike parents or any other people, the gods Cryer . . . told me more and more about Li would actually know what was good and have Qing-jao and Han Fei-tzu . . . I began to real- the power to cause good things to happen, ize that here was the real foundation of the tale even when nobody else understood that they I wanted this book to tell. (Xenocide, ix) were good. As Wiggin said, real gods . . . would Not surprisingly, Qing-jao bears the marks of have all the intelligence and power that it was this transformation. On the one hand, she has two possible to have. (432–33) of the characteristics that Card typically associates In essence, then, Ender counters subversion with minor characters: “The way to make such char- with orthodoxy (at least Mormon orthodoxy). He acters instantly memorable . . . is to make them acknowledges the power of various subversive eccentric or obsessive” (“Finer Points,” I, 28). But on hypotheses about religion, but he does so without the other hand, Qing-jao begins Xenocide as a child accepting a corresponding loss of faith. In the pro- in jeopardy, has a well-documented past, is driven cess he contains the subversion that lies at the heart by unusually complex motives, experiences a full of Xenocide—but not completely. measure of pain, and is drawn in truly heroic pro- Why? Part of the answer is a simple matter of portions: all of which, says Card, are the hallmarks aesthetic technique. In fiction, showing is almost of a major character (“Finer Points,” II and III). always more effective than telling. While subversion Indeed, by the end of Xenocide Qing-jao along with in Xenocide is writ large in its characters’ actions, the subversion she embodies has become the focal containment comes chiefly through reflection and point of the novel, while Ender, Jane, and the con- dialogue, the predictable result being that the novel’s tainment they represent have become almost inci- subversive elements are felt in a way that its attempts dental. “Have characters that are so important and at containment are not. Ironically, the unexpected so believable to the audience that they can’t forget strength of the novel’s subversive elements is due in them,” declares Card in his last essay on characteri- part, at least, to the fact that Card appears to have zation (“Finer Points,” III, 36). In Xenocide he does made Qing-jao into what he elsewhere calls “too just that—he creates a character who is simultane- memorable” a character. In the first of a series of ously unforgettable and uncontainable. essays on “The Finer Points of Characterization” Qing-jao’s stage presence is not the only threat Card notes that good fiction includes a hierarchy to containment in the novel, however. Another of characters—from central to vanishing—and warns more serious concern is that the very hypotheses authors against overdoing the minor ones: “Every Ender’s theology seeks to lock up potentially character who makes an appearance cant be just as undermines it. His assertion of preexisting free will important as every other. . . . When you make a is susceptible to the counterclaim that such an [minor] character too memorable, your audience assertion itself demonstrates religious hegemony in assumes he will matter more than you intend him action, ideology made flesh, as it were. Certainly,

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Althusser would have thought so. Althusser builds secretly infect the population with a virus designed upon Gramsci’s notion of hegemony, paying par- to counteract the effects of the manipulation, ticular attention to the term “ideology.” Ideology, doing so in secret precisely because they realize that says Althusser, is more than just a worldview or if the people of Path knew what they were doing, system of beliefs. Rather, ideology is “a ‘Represen- they would stop it: they would never willingly con- tation’ of the Imaginary Relationship of Individuals sent to be infected by the virus. Readers know that to their Real Conditions of Existence” (Althusser, this is so, as do both Ender and Han Fei-tzu, because 152). By this Athusser means that although ideol- when Han Fei-tzu asks Qing-jao (as a representa- ogy depicts the conditions under which men live tive of those who still follow the way of Path) for quite accurately, it depicts their relationship to permission to release the virus, she stoutly refuses, those conditions inaccurately, since it depicts them declaring: “Father, I beg you, don’t do this. . . . as free subjects rather than as people who live in What can I do to persuade you? If I say nothing, you subjection to God, to the state, to the boss, etc.— will do it, and when I speak to beg you, you will do and it does so precisely in order to persuade them it all the more surely” (Xenocide, 526). Further, to toe the line: when the virus becomes effective, Ender and his The whole mystery of this effect lies in . . . the coconspirators conceal both their secrecy and their ambiguity of the term subject. In the ordinary violation of the people’s freedom of choice behind use of the term, subject in fact means (1) a free a cloak of lies, just as had Congress before them: subjectivity, a centre of initiatives, author of The news reader . . . began reading a report and responsible for its actions; (2) a subjected about a document that was turning up on com- being, who submits to a higher authority, and puters all over the world. The document said is therefore stripped of all freedom except that that this plague was a gift from the gods, free- of freely accepting his submission. This last note ing the people of Path from a genetic alteration. gives us the meaning of this ambiguity . . . : the individual is interpellated as a (free) subject in “This document says that the whole world order that he shall submit freely . . . , i.e., in order is now purified. The gods have accepted us.” that he shall (freely) accept his subjection. The news reader’s voice trembled as she spoke. . . . (Althusser, 169) [Han Fei-tzu’s] face was radiant. Triumphant. “Did you see the message that Jane and I From Althusser’s perspective, then, Ender’s prepared?” he said. assertion of free will is not an escape from ideology “You!” cried Qing-jao. “My father, a teller but an expression of it. The problem, of course, is of lies?” (584, 585) that both Ender’s and Althusser’s statements are mere assertions with no proof asked or given. Ender Thus, Ender Wiggin, the great voice of freedom asserts that men are free. Althusser asserts that claims in Xenocide, grants the people of Path no more of freedom are ideologies designed to enforce com- choice and no more access to truth than did Con- pliance. Men are left to choose which perspective gress. His motives are different, but his covert they prefer. Or are they? Unfortunately, no. For methods and his calculated willingness to elimi- although Ender does not prove his assertion of free nate choice in the name of choice are the same. will any more than Athusser proves his theory of Through his actions, Ender proves Althusser true. ideology, Ender does prove something, not by word He subverts his own theology and undoes his own but by deed. What Ender proves through his deeds best attempts at containment. That, Althusser would is that Athusser was probably right all along. When surely declare, is the real lesson Xenocide teaches. Ender Wiggin and Han Fei-tzu conclude that the An even more serious impediment to contain- people of Path have been manipulated without ment in Xenocide, however, has less to do with their consent, their solution to this violation of technique or ideology than with epistemology. How choice is itself yet another such violation. They can men know for sure, the novel forces readers to

72 Subversion and Containment in Xenocide ask, that what Ender says is true? How can men And if the gods don’t like it, they can poi- know that they are free, that God is good, and so son me in my sleep or catch me on fire as I’m forth? How can men ever know, if, as Xenocide makes walking in the garden tomorrow or just make abundantly clear, the evidence can always already my arms and legs and head drop off my body be seen to cut both ways? How, asks Wang-mu, can like crumbs off a cake. If they can’t manage to men ever figure such knowledge out? stop a stupid little servant girl like me, they don’t amount to much anyway. (435.) But a being like that—who was someone like Wang-mu to judge a god? She couldn’t Wang-mu’s defiant challenge sounds much like understand their purposes even if they told her, what Fredric Jameson says when he, too, finds him- so how could she ever know that they were self in an epistemological crunch. The truth of his- good. Yet the other approach, to trust in them tory, writes Jameson at the most difficult moment and believe in them absolutely—wasn’t that in The Political Unconscious (1981), what Qing-jao was doing? can be apprehended only through its effects. . . . No. If there were gods, they would never This is indeed the ultimate sense in which His- act as Qing-jao thought they acted—enslaving tory as ground and untranscendable horizon people, tormenting them and humiliating needs no particular theoretical justification: we them. may be sure that its alienating necessities will Unless torment and humiliation were good not forget us, however much we might prefer for them. . . . to ignore them. (Jameson, 102) No! She almost cried aloud, and once Jameson’s outburst is of course a retreat rather than again pressed her face into her hands, this time to keep silent. (433) an explanation, a textual symptom of a subtextual aporia. So is Wang-mu’s. They are at once the col- Wang-mu’s answer to her own question is illu- lapse of containment, the triumph of power and of minating. She says: “I can only judge by what I willful subjectivity. understand. . . . Perhaps I’m so stupid and foolish Ironically, the novel’s failure to contain its own that I will always be the enemy to the gods, working most subversive elements adequately is probably against their high and incomprehensible purposes. the partial result, or at least a clear symptom, of But I have to live my life by what I understand” Card’s own extraordinary confidence in the success (434). This is powerful doctrine. Unfortunately, of his novelistic enterprise: only an author who has it is powerful in precisely the wrong way. Wang- an abiding faith in religion is likely to have the mu is eloquent and persuasive, but what she says is confidence necessary to put it to the screws the way not a solution but a confession: in this world of Card has in Xenocide, with full faith in its ultimate flesh and bone there is simply no way to transcend triumph. In one respect, at least, Card’s confidence the subjective, the personal, the conditional. At is richly rewarded: though Xenocide never fully con- this stage, at least, there is simply no way to know tains its own most subversive impulses, in the smoke for certain. and flame of the battle it does become significant Wang-mu’s response to the riddle of epistemol- art. None of the other novels in the Ender Wiggin ogy, then, is neither immanent, in Gilles Deleuze saga risks nearly as much as does Xenocide, and and Felix Guattari’s sense of the word, nor transcen- none burns so brilliantly in the ensuing struggle dent. Rather, it is what Michel Foucault calls the between faith and doubt. In spite of, perhaps even will to knowledge, which is also, Xenocide seems because of, its failure at containment, Xenocide is to suggest, as did Foucault, the will to power, for oddly like Qing-jao herself: Gloriously Bright. when push comes to shove, Wang-mu challenges the gods to prove her wrong neither through rea- son nor emotion, but rather through a brute show of force: Reprinted from Literature and Belief 24.1 (2004).

73 AML Annual 2004

WORKS CITED Foucault, Michel. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Oxford: Basil Black- Athusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Appa- well, 1977. ratuses.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks. Ed. and trans. trans. Ben Brewster, 123–73. New York: NLB, 1971. Joseph Buttiglegg. New York: Columbia University Beowulf. Trans. Charles W. Kennedy. In The Literature Press, 1992. of England, ed. George K. Anderson and William E. Greenblatt, Stephen. “‘Invisible Bullets’: Renaissance Buckler, 1:1, 15–65. 5th ed. 2 vols. Chicago: Scott Authority and Its Subversion.” Glyph 8 (1981): Foresman, 1966. 40–61. Card, Orson Scott. Children of the Mind. New York: Harlot, Thomas. A Brief and True Report of the New Tor, 1996. Land of Virginia. London: n.p., 1588. ———. “The Finer Points of Characterization Part I: Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative Just How Important Are These People?” Writer’s as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell Univer- Digest 66 (October 1986): 26–28. sity Press, 1981. ———. “The Finer Points of Characterization Part II: Johnson, Barbara. The Critical Difference: Essays in the Creating Characters That Readers Care About.” Contemporary Rhetoric of Reading. Baltimore: John Writer’s Digest 66 (November 1986): 37–38. Hopkins University Press, 1980. ———. “The Finer Points of Characterization Part III: Joyce, James. Ulysses. 1922. New York: Random House, Making Your Characters Believable.” Writer’s Digest 1961. 66 (December 1986): 32–36. Review of Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card. Kirkus ———. Speaker for the Dead. New York: T. Doherty Reviews 59 (1 June 1991): 699. Associates, 1986. Smith, Joseph. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. ———. Xenocide. New York: Tor, 1991. Ed. Joseph Fielding Smith. Salt Lake City: Deseret, Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. What Is Philosophy? 1965. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson. New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press, 1994.

74 Keynote Address

Art and Soul: Lessons from Willa Cather for Mormon Writers, Critics, and Audiences

Marilyn Arnold

It is no wonder that when [Nellie Melba’s] old The second passage is from Death Comes for teacher out in Melbourne went over to Paris to the Archbishop. It occurs near the end of the book hear her in one of her great triumphs, he bowed when the old Archbishop realizes that he cannot, his head and said, “Ah, my poor child, if I could after all, retire in his native France as he had once but have given you a soul!” How strange that one expected. He finds that the desert has insinuated who has so much should yet lack that thing holier itself into his very being and that he must live out than all, that thing which alone gives art a right the remainder of his life there. On his final visit to to be.1 France, he remembers the “light dry wind” of New hat, from Willa Cather at age twenty-four. Now, Mexico, air that was filled “with the fragrance of Ttwo passages from well-beloved novels, when hot sun and sagebrush and sweet clover; a wind Cather was in her forties and fifties. This from My that made one’s body feel light and one’s heart cry Ántonia, near the end of the book. Jim Burden has ‘To-day, to-day,’ like a child’s.” He knows now that returned to the prairie after a twenty-year absence “beautiful surroundings, the society of learned men, and found his childhood friend “a battered woman” the charm of noble women, the graces of art, could rather than the lithe, spunky girl he had known as not make up to him for the loss of those light- a youth. Nonetheless, he discovers that her person- hearted mornings of the desert, for that wind that ality, her essential being, is not in the least dimin- made one a boy again.” Cather concludes Bishop ished by years of childbearing and hard farm life. Latour’s revery with this lovely lyrical passage: She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes That air would disappear from the whole which we recognize by instinct as universal and earth in time, perhaps; but long after his day. true. I had not been mistaken. She was a bat- He did not know just when it had become so tered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still necessary to him, but he had come back to die had that something which fires the imagina- in exile for the sake of it. Something soft and tion, could still stop one’s breath for a moment wild and free, something that whispered to the by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the ear on the pillow, lightened the heart, softly, meaning in common things. She had only to softly picked the lock, slid the bolts, and stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little released the prisoned spirit of man into the crab tree and look up at the apples, to make wind, into the blue and gold, into the morn- you feel the goodness of planting and tending ing, into the morning!3 and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been What is it about passages like this that stir us? so tireless in serving generous emotions. . . . What is it about Cather’s writing that has drawn She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of people to her work in ever larger numbers? Why is early races.2 it that I return to it again and again with increasing

75 AML Annual 2004 wonder and appreciation? Why does her work death, Cather declined by letter an invitation to endure? There are, of course, many gifted writers speak at Columbia University on the grounds that whose work has lasted and will last, but I believe she changed her mind too often to speak in public Willa Cather, in particular, has valuable things to and didn’t want to be held accountable for what teach LDS writers, critics, and readers. The passages she had said ten years before.7) Contradictions not- I have cited from her fiction illustrate, I think, the withstanding, when it came to core beliefs about essence of her gift. I hope they suggest the quality I art, she was quite consistent, if somewhat dramatic. have tried to capture in the phrase “art and soul,” As an adult, Cather liked to joke about “the purple itself a play on words from a very old love song. flurry of my early writing,” what she called her In an early newspaper column assessing the “florid, exaggerated, foamy-at-the-mouth, adjective- performing styles of three famous actresses, written spree period. . . . It is agony,” she added, “to be when she was a student at the University of smothered in your own florescence.”8 Thus, in the Nebraska, Cather first linked the two words “art” young, especially, there may be an overbalance of and “soul,” enlarging the concept of soul to passion, though I think Cather would say better embrace artistic desire, passion. “The supreme too much than too little. virtue in all art is soul,” she writes; “perhaps it is And through the years Cather never stopped the only thing which gives art a right to be.” And asserting the importance of passion in art, and she then she adds that in theater, “the greatest art” is wrote a good many stories and novels about it. “to play a part . . . with power and passion.”4 Tw o Clearly, for her, its absence meant that the per- years later she would criticize the fiction of Emile former or writer was a mere practitioner and no Zola on the grounds that “it lacks the impress of a artist. She insisted in a lecture that “art is taking the human soul. . . . You may heap the details of beauty pains for the love of it; art is just taking pains. A together forever,” she says, “but they are not man [or woman] must be made for his art; he must beauty until one human soul feels and knows. That work for it, and he must work intelligently.”9 She is what Zola’s books lack from first to last, the observed in the interview cited above that “it is the awakening of the spirit.”5 These things she knew longest distance in the world between the artist early on, in her gut. From the beginning, art was in and the near artist.”10 her very bones, whether consciously or not. A few Near the end of her life, in response to a stu- letters penned in her middle teens turned up sev- dent who wrote to ask about an early short story, eral years ago, letters she had written to an old “Paul’s Case,” Cather stated in no uncertain terms neighbor who had moved away. The passion is that a strong desire for beauty is the real gift, the already there, in embryo—the pull of art, the fasci- important gift, a blessed gift that can’t be denied. nation with literature and language—along with She refers her correspondent to her 1915 novel the self-conscious adolescent posing and a few about a girl destined by her own irrepressible desire dozen misspelled words. I shall quote briefly from to sing opera. The Song of the Lark, Cather informs the letters, but because of testamentary restric- the young man, tells how she herself feels about tions, these extracts will not appear in the pub- this almost unnameable treasure.11 If you want lished conference proceedings.6 to experience Cather’s passion for art, read that [adolescent letters] novel, the most autobiographical of her works. Now, it is true that the journalist in her early Never mind that her main character is a musician, twenties, like the precocious fourteen-year-old not a writer. writer of learned epistles, displayed all the brashness Significantly, Cather speaks of art in terms of of youth in her newspaper columns and reviews. calling and vocation, even holy vocation. Statements And, she contradicted herself right and left. (On like these characterize her early columns and reviews: the matter of contradiction, let me add a paren- Ink and paper are so rigidly exacting. One may thetical note. In 1940, seven years before her lie to one’s self, lie to the world, lie to God, even,

76 Lessons from Willa Cather for Mormon Writers, Critics, and Audiences

but to one’s pen one cannot lie. You may talk œ brilliantly and still be very much of a fool. But Willa Cather never outlined a set of rules for writ- when one comes to write, ah, that is different! ers, of course, but over a lifetime she had much Every artificial aid fails you. All that you have to say, very much, about writing and reading. In- been taught leaves you. . . . You are then a trans- directly from her fiction, and directly from her lator, without a lexicon, without notes, and overt statements about the writer’s craft, I glean a you are to translate—God.12 few “lessons” or precepts that seem especially perti- In the kingdom of art there is no God, but one nent to us as writers and readers in the faith. God, and his service is so exacting that there Cather’s first lesson, as I see it, speaks to the are few men born of women who are strong 13 presence of soul in art, but in a more personal way enough to take the vows. than do her statements about the artist’s passion. [True artists know] the loneliness which besets The precept is simply this: write with feeling and all mortals who are shut up alone with God. . . . care deeply about your material and characters, Gloom . . . is the shadow of God’s hand conse- deeply enough to give the best of yourself to them. crating his elect. . . . Solitude . . . is the veil and Reading Cather’s 1922 letters about her Pulitzer the cloister which keep the priesthood of art Prize–winning novel of that year, One of Ours, tells untainted from the world.14 me how much she gave to her main character, The world was made by an Artist, by the divin- Claude Wheeler. More than a dozen letters to her ity and godhead of art. . . . Yet when we come old college friend and fellow writer, Dorothy Can- to worship this Painter, this Poet, this Musician, field Fisher, are literally bursting with her feelings this gigantic Artist of all art that is, this God about Claude and his story. She says that while she whose spirit moved upon chaos leaving beauty was working on One of Ours her only life was the incarnate in its shadow, we bring the worst of all the world’s art and lay it at his feet.15 life of the book and her character. She describes the experience as total possession, companionship I’m sure we agree that the young Cather takes with a living soul. Everywhere she went, whether hyperbole to new heights in these statements, but attending a concert or walking in the park, she met we would probably also agree that she is right Claude. When the book was finished, her sense of about the mountains of kitsch produced in the loss was excruciating; it was as though she had been name of religion. It is no compliment to God to buried with her character.19 Letters to H. L. Mencken package his message in cheap wrappings. The late and Carl Van Doren, presumably also in 1922, Bernice Slote rightly sees a “fundamental religious confirm the enormous emotional investment metaphor of art” running throughout Cather’s Cather had made in her character and his story.20 work, beginning with her earliest columns and Granted, Cather had reason to be especially critical reviews.16 Even in adulthood Cather absorbed in the story of a boy drawn from a young acknowledged the holy origins of art, declaring in cousin of hers, but once she found her own voice as an interview that one “must have a technique and a writer of fiction, everything she wrote absorbed a birthright to write,” and adding that she didn’t her. Her interviews, lectures, early newspaper “know how else to express it.”17 More pointedly, columns, reviews, and personal correspondence are she asserted that “art and religion express the same filled with references to “feeling” and “emotion” in thing in us,—that hunger for beauty.” On the mat- connection with her own work and that of others, ter of art Cather was adamant, and she nearly as well as to the necessity and demands of art. always linked art to life, the soul’s life. “Art thrives Much as Cather elevated art and what it exacted best,” she continued, “where the personal life is from the artist, she never underplayed the role of richest, fullest, and warmest, from the kitchen emotion, insisting that the work of the artist is to up.” Art “is made out of the love of old and inti- find the right “form” for “an emotion that he wants mate things.”18 to pass on.” “The emotion,” she said, “is bigger than

77 AML Annual 2004 style.”21 She complained in a letter to lifelong friend daughter-in-law. We remember him as a man who Carrie Miner Sherwood that she could never make gamely organizes a family picnic on the day hot people understand that an emotion or an excitement winds wither and destroy his corn crop and as a is what a story is made of, an impression from per- man who has no anxiety about death should his sonal experience that has stayed with one. Cather failing heart give out. We remember, too, that his adds that the person created on the page is not an wife Mary refuses to sell the cream from her cows’ actual picture, but a memory, the effect someone or milk because she prefers roses in the cheeks of her something produced in the writer’s mind or heart. children to money in the bank. As the Rosickys’ The character of Ántonia, she says, is the fictional friend, Doctor Ed Burleigh, reflects, “People as embodiment of her feelings, all of them, about the generous and warm-hearted and affectionate as the early immigrants she knew on the Nebraska prairie.22 Rosickys never got ahead much; maybe you couldn’t While acknowledging in a lecture at Bowdoin enjoy your life and put it into the bank, too.” College that “hate is a fruitful emotion,” she Burleigh’s further reflection outlines the secret unequivocally declared that “the great characters in to a happy life, for all of us. Thinking of Rosicky literature are born out of love,” not hate.23 And her and Mary, he realizes that “life had gone well with preface to a collection of stories by Sarah Orne them because, at bottom, they had the same ideas Jewett echoes that sentiment. There she says that if about life. They agreed, without discussion, as to the writer “achieves anything noble, anything what was most important and what was second- enduring, it must be by giving himself absolutely ary. . . . A good deal had to be sacrificed and thrown to his material. And this gift of sympathy is his overboard in a hard life like theirs, and they had great gift; it is the fine thing in him that alone can never disagreed as to the things that could go. . . . make his work fine. He fades away into the land They had been at one accord not to hurry through and people of his heart, he dies of love only to be life, not to be always skimping and saving. They born again.”24 We’re not talking about syrupy saw their neighbours buy more land and feed more sweet stuff here, what she disdained as the “Sunny stock than they did, without discontent.”26 Jim” and “Pollyanna schools” of “grape nuts” opti- The kind of harmony Cather describes between mism,25 but about feeling that has been refined by Rosicky and his wife, however, does not universally a higher purpose. obtain in her fiction. Even in the Rosicky story, the appeal of the city and greater material comfort What you are no doubt gathering from all this is threatens to pull Rosicky’s eldest son off the land; that Willa Cather’s writing, and her ideas about and the land is always a value in Cather’s work, writing, reflect her most cherished beliefs and val- always associated with soul. Indeed, Cather creates ues. We always know where she stands because she a good many conflicted characters, but she does so makes it apparent through her characters, her sub- without compromising her own values, her innate ject matter, her landscapes, and the clean thrust of sense of what is right and good. Typically, her con- her art. Cather’s mature fiction is value-centered, flicted characters are torn by the clash between but—unlike her expository pronouncements—rarely their personal values and the degenerating or preachy, because undergirding her values are what twisted values of people around them, often people for her are the necessities, even holy impulses, of art. they love—family members, friends, associates. Cather’s second precept, then, is celebrate the The pain cuts especially deep if the conflict occurs noble and good. I should add that this may at times within one’s family, as in The Professor’s House. In require the exercise of restraint, in both subject and that novel, Professor Godfrey St. Peter personally treatment. Most of us are familiar with the Cather ascribes to the nonmaterialistic values of the Blue story “Neighbour Rosicky,” and we remember Mesa, values embodied in young Tom Outland, Rosicky as a soft-spoken, gentle man whose quiet, while his wife and daughters have succumbed to grateful manner softens the restless heart of his the allure of worldly glitter and achievement.

78 Lessons from Willa Cather for Mormon Writers, Critics, and Audiences

One of Cather’s firmest beliefs, apparent from “There is such a thing in life as nobility,” her earliest pronouncements as a youthful critic to she said, “and novels which celebrate it will the last line of her final posthumously published always be the novels which are finally loved.”29 story, was that art has an inherent morality. “The In an essay decrying the overly furnished novel, only unpardonable sin is artificiality,” she declared Cather affirms what she said in her lecture, assert- 27 in a critical column. For her, there was no greater ing in deliberately crafted euphemisms that “char- sin than the sin against art and its integrity. We acters can be almost dehumanized by a laboratory need only remember her countless stories about study of the behaviour of their bodily organs under artists, whether singers, painters, or sculptors, to sensory stimuli—can be reduced, indeed, to mere know that about her. (Interestingly, she published animal pulp.” And then she adds, rather wickedly, only one obscure story about a writer—two writ- for she knew the Lawrences in New Mexico, “Can ers, really—though she mentions writers in another one imagine anything more terrible than the story story or two.) One of her most memorable charac- of Romeo and Juliet rewritten in prose by D. H. ters is old Wunsch in The Song of the Lark, Thea Lawrence?”30 Kronborg’s piano teacher. Dissolute and anguished In response to a request from Commonweal though he was, he never compromised his art, magazine, and a national debate as to the role of art never stopped loving it, caring about it. Music was in society, Cather wrote a letter/essay which the the only thing that still fired his imagination, the magazine published. What she says near the end of only happiness he knew. Art owned his soul and the piece underscores the substance of both her lec- gave him a certain nobility. ture and her essay on the novel: The morality of the writer’s art lies in the writ- ten word—what you and I choose to write and The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from how we choose to write it, what we choose to read adulteration and from the intrusions of foreign and how we choose to evaluate what we read. On matter; considerations and purposes which the matter of what we as believers can or cannot in have nothing to do with spontaneous inven- good conscience portray or praise, Cather’s views, tion. The great body of Russian literature was 28 I think, are especially helpful. Her important produced when the censorship was at its 1925 lecture at the University of Chicago addresses strictest. The art of Italy flowered when the the responsibility of the artist in a permissive cli- painters were confined almost entirely to reli- mate. One newspaper account of that lecture gious subjects. . . . . Religion and art spring reports the following: from the same root and are close kin. Econom- ics and art are strangers.31 [Cather] spoke at length about the new freedom of subject matter. She voiced the We should not mistake Cather’s remark about belief that periods of the greatest freedom have “spontaneous invention” to mean that anything never been periods of the greatest beauty in goes if done in the name of art. She makes herself literary creation. The very fact that there are very clear in her point about great art’s ability to restrictions, things one must not talk about, flourish even under severe religious censorship. tends to make the art a richer one. That is also After all, as she has said in an early story, we some- true of language, she said. There now are being used words which formerly were to be found times feel the diva’s power more in the holding only in patent medicine almanacs. . . . back than in the release of the floodgates. Of the She said that the power to stir the reader great Madam Tradutorri, the young Cather writes: erotically was the charge of dynamite which Tradutorri holds back her suffering within her- every great author had, but that, used to excess self. . . . She takes this great anguish of hers and or even used without distinction, the charge lays it in a tomb and rolls a stone before the lost every whit of its power. door and walls it up. . ..

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See, in all great impersonation there are husband apparently finds solace in other women. two stages. One in which the object is the gen- Lucy Gayheart describes the infatuation, fall, and eration of emotional power; to produce from death of a talented young woman of beauty, spirit, one’s own brain a whirlwind. and grace. Granted, Death Comes for the Archbishop . . . The other is the conservation of all this has no moral conflict of a sexual nature, unless you emotional energy; to bind the whirlwind down count the lechery of Father Martinez. Of that book, within one’s straining heart, . . . to hold all Cather wryly told friends that a novel in which the these chaotic faces still and silent within one’s only woman was the Virgin Mary was not likely to self until out of this tempest of pain and pas- excite much interest among the reading public.33 sion there speaks the still, small voice unto the Cather did not avoid touchy subjects and situ- soul of man. This is the theory of “repression.” ations, but neither did she dwell on them, leaving 32 This is classical art, art exalted, art deified. little to the imagination. It seems to me that she In this instance, we must concentrate on what the struck the proper balance between realism and youthful writer says rather than on what she does. taste. We come away from her work lifted, energized, (She is still in her “florid” stage.) Later, she follows and profoundly satisfied. Her focus was always on her own counsel. qualities of character, on hardihood, on lasting val- We should remember, however, that Cather’s ues, on story. Does today’s world impose a kind of mature restraint did not mean that she avoided dif- reverse pressure, tempting us to get a little loose or ficult subjects in her fiction. On the contrary. She a little ugly simply because much contemporary wrote of adultery, slavery, murder, and suicide publishing allows, even expects, it? without apology, and at a time when some readers were offended by her frank realism. Her first novel, Cather’s third precept is related to the second. She Alexander’s Bridge, tells the story of an engaging, articulated it in describing her method in Death powerful man, who lives a double life. While mar- Comes for the Archbishop. “The essence of such ried to an attractive woman in America, he carries writing,” she says, “is not to hold the note, not to on an affair with an actress from his past in Lon- use an incident for all there is in it—but to touch don. The fatal flaw in his character is represented and pass on.” By contrast, she continues, the “gen- eral tendency” these days “is to force things up.”34 symbolically in the climactic collapse of the bridge What Cather is talking about here is the power of he is building, a grand structure that would have suggestion, the strength of understatement, the been his greatest achievement. Cather’s second skillful use of tone. novel, O Pioneers!, portrays the sexual fall and mur- Consider her portrayal of the legendary death ders of Emil Bergson and Marie Shabata. Her third of the opulent, tyrannical, and self-indulgent Fray novel, The Song of the Lark, quietly reveals that Baltazar in Death Comes for the Archbishop. The Thea Kronborg and Fred Ottenburg live together humble Indians to whom he ministers cater to his without benefit of matrimony. tastes for fine foods and gracious living, even Cather’s fourth novel, My Ántonia, tells not though they themselves live meagerly. They carry only of Papa Shimerda’s suicide and Ántonia’s giv- water on their backs to nourish his garden, and ing birth out of wedlock, but it details in a comical serve his wants endlessly. But one day he oversteps way the marriage, indiscretions, and murder-suicide their limits, flinging an empty pewter mug at a boy of the Wick Cutters. One of Ours details the anguish who accidentally spills gravy on one of the priest’s and eventual violent death in war of an idealistic dinner guests. The boy dies and his people take boy who has married a pinched, frigid wife. A Lost quiet action. Fray Baltazar knows his Indians and Lady portrays the fall of a lovely woman who opts doesn’t resist. Without fanfare, at the rising of the for life on any terms, even if it means giving herself moon, several of the men lift the portly priest and to scoundrels. My Mortal Enemy chronicles the fling him off the steepest edge of the high mesa. decline of a selfish, but indomitable, woman whose This is how Cather tells it:

80 Lessons from Willa Cather for Mormon Writers, Critics, and Audiences

They cut his bonds, and taking him by the paper, to be made of the stuff of immortality. . . . hands and feet, swung him out over the rock- Fine quality is a distinct disadvantage in articles edge and back a few times. He was heavy, and made for great numbers of people who do not perhaps they thought this dangerous sport. No want quality but quantity, who do not want a thing sound but hissing breath came through his that ‘wears,’ but who want change,—a succession teeth. The four executioners took him up again of new things that are quickly threadbare and can from the brink where they had laid him, and, be lightly thrown away. . . . Amusement is one after a few feints, dropped him in mid-air. thing; enjoyment of art is another.”39 So did they rid their rock of their tyrant, In a New York Times Book Review interview, she whom on the whole they had liked very well. But everything has its day.35 reported a recent conversation with William Dean Howells in which he lamented the loss of a period Now, this is certainly high drama, but I think the some forty years earlier when “only good books drama is more powerful, the tension more grip- were published” and “only cultivated people read.” ping, because the scene is understated. What is not Cather said she disagreed with him in part, arguing said rattles our souls. that “fine books are still written for fine people.” Cather speaks to that method in her essay on Then she added, suppressing a smile, “Sometimes the novel that I cited above: the others read them, too, and if they can stand it, Whatever is felt upon the page without it doesn’t hurt them.” Next, she clarified what she being specifically named there—that, one might meant by the “fine reader”: “By the fine reader I say, is created. It is the inexplicable presence of don’t necessarily mean the man or woman with a the thing not named, of the overtone divined cultivated background, an academic, or a wealthy by the ear but not heard by it, the verbal mood, background. I mean the person with quickness and the emotional aura of the fact or the thing or the richness of mentality, fineness of spirituality.” She deed, that gives high quality to the novel or 36 went on to say that those qualities were often found the drama, as well as to poetry itself. in people who worked with their hands.40 “I never That this was a cardinal principle for her is obvious had any intellectual excitement more intense than in her letters as well as in her fiction and her pub- spending a morning with a pioneer woman at but- lished pronouncements. For example, she writes to ter making and hearing her talk,” she told another Thornton Wilder in the fall of 1938, praising Our interviewer.41 Cather was also fond of saying that Town. The play is important, she says, principally she knew no truer artists than some immigrant because it reflects something that is felt by every- farm women of her acquaintance. one but remains beyond anyone’s ability to define. She was fully aware that the books she wrote In attempting to describe such a work, she con- were unlikely to interest the popular audience. In a tinues, we are left to rather vague terms like spiri- letter to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, she jokes about tual quality.37 Beauty, she tells F. Scott Fitzgerald in the limited size of her reading audience in Lincoln, a letter, can scarcely be defined at all. The most a Nebraska. She allows as how Dorothy’s readers, person can say about it is how hard it hit him.38 which she judges outnumber her own about twenty to one, quarrel with her readers. Dorothy’s, Cather’s fourth precept is related to the previous she says, claim that Cather writes immoral rot, and two: write for the “fine” reader. In other words, Cather’s readers argue that Dorothy is dull. You, make a conscious choice about the audience you she tells Dorothy, have the Geres, the Westermanns, wish to reach. Referring specifically to the reader of the university people, and the newspaper editor, novels, Cather says, “One must make it clear Will Owen Jones, to whom you are most welcome. whether one is talking about the novel as a form or I, she says, have Sarah Harris and five German amusement, or as a form of art. . . . One does not brewers.42 wish the egg one eats for breakfast, or the morning œ

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Cather’s fifth precept is easy. Be earnest in your She was no less quick-witted in her extempora- work, but maintain a sense of humor. (She would, neous comments. As she was boarding a train at however, have spelled it “humour.”) Her humor is Grand Central Station in New York City, an inter- often indirect and subtle in her novels and stories, viewer intercepted her and began plying her with though it is openly present in comic characters like questions, the last of which asked what she thought the Wick Cutters and Mrs. Archie (The Song of the was “the greatest obstacle American writers have to Lark). In her interviews the humor is often sly, but overcome.” clearly intentional. In her letters it takes every The ever-wily Cather replied with a question form, and in her newspaper writing it is obvious of her own: “Well, what do other writers tell you?” and often ironic. For example, when the Lincoln “Some say commercialism, and some say pro- Courier featured a symposium inviting readers hibition” (this was 1926). to submit questions on the topic of “Man and “I don’t exactly agree with either,” Cather Woman,” members of the editorial staff responded. responded. “I should say it was the lecture bug. In One reader, who identified himself (I assume it was this country a writer has to hide and lie and almost a he) only as “Bible Student,”asked this: “Does not steal in order to get time to work in—and peace of the Bible teach that God created woman subject to mind to work with. Besides, lecturing is very dan- and subordinate to man and is it not a dangerous gerous for writers. If we lecture, we get a little more presumption in her to claim to be his equal?” owlish and self-satisfied all the time. We hate it at Cather, newly graduated from college, gave a clas- first, if we are decently modest, but in the end we sic answer, which I can only excerpt here: fall in love with the sound of our own voice. . . . All human beings, apparently, like to speak in public. The Bible undoubtedly teaches that woman The timid man becomes bold, the man who has should be subservient to man, but does it say that she was, is, or ever will be? It began with never had an opinion about anything becomes Eve who wheedled Adam into eating more chock full of them the moment he faces an audi- fruit than was good for him. Then there was ence. A woman, alas becomes even fuller! . . . It’s 45 Rebekah who put gloves on Jacob and deceived especially destructive to writers.” (And here we poor Isaac into willing his property to the are, lecturing each other!) wrong son. Later Rachel made poor Jacob herd sheep for her fourteen years and then made Cather had a lot of other counsel for us, stated and him sublimely miserable after he got her. implied—simplify, cut out the excess furniture, use allusion to add layers of meaning, “don’t try to imi- Cather goes on to describe the demoralizing tate New York,”46 and so on. But, the sooner to experiences of Samson and David and Solomon at recover from the unfortunate effects of the lecture the hands of various women and points out that bug, I’m going to quit with those I’ve named: “Jezebel ruled with a rod of iron three generations (1) write with feeling, (2) value the noble and of the kings of Israel.” She also recounts Esther’s good, (3) touch the note and pass on, (4) write for triumph at Haaman’s expense. This is her conclusion: the fine reader, and (5) maintain a sense of humor. These are only a few of the hundred Bibli- In the spirit of that final precept I conclude with cal instances in which the women who were a letter Cather wrote to her editor at Houghton undoubtedly created subservient turned the Mifflin, Ferris Greenslet, before she switched over tables. In theory the Jews maintained the supe- to young Alfred Knopf. Greenslet had forwarded a riority of man but in practice it did not always request from some group asking that she give per- 43 follow. mission to change the name of the bull in My One can sense that Cather’s revenge was especially Ántonia from Brigham Young to Andrew Jackson, sweet. The Bible student met his match. Cather had for a special edition of a thousand copies. I’ll cut her teeth on the King James Bible.44 conclude by reading from her letter of response,

82 Lessons from Willa Cather for Mormon Writers, Critics, and Audiences though I can’t quote it in the published text of this 13. Nebraska State Journal, 1 March 1896, 9; rpt. in discussion, and no paraphrase could do it justice.47 Slote, 417. [bull letter] 14. Nebraska State Journal, 16 June 1895, 12; rpt. in Curtin, 208. 15. Nebraska State Journal, 7 October 1894, 11; NOTES rpt. in Curtin, 117. 1. Willa Cather, Lincoln Courier, 29 January 1898, 16. Slote, 82. 2; rpt. in William M. Curtin, ed., The World and the 17. Quoted in Eva Mahoney, “How Willa Cather Parish: Willa Cather’s Articles and Reviews, 1893–1902, Found Herself,” Omaha World-Herald, 27 November vol. 1 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970), 1921; rpt. in Bohlke, 37. 416. Cather heard Melba sing on several occasions 18. Mason, in Bohlke, 149. between 1895 and 1898, in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and 19. Willa Cather to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, New York. After Cather left Nebraska and moved to 8? March, 27? March, and 7? April 1922, Guy Bailey Pittsburgh in the summer of 1896, she continued Library, University of Vermont. to send columns back to the Courier and to the 20. Willa Cather to H. L. Mencken, 6 February Nebraska State Journal. [1922], Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore; Willa Cather 2. Willa Cather, My Ántonia (Boston: Houghton to Carl Van Doren, n.d., [1922], Princeton University Mifflin, 1918), 398. Library. 3. Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop 21. Quoted in Flora Merrill, “A Short Story Course (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927), 276–77. Can Only Delay, It Cannot Kill an Artist, Says Willa 4. Nebraska State Journal, 4 March 1894, 13; rpt. in Cather,” New York World, 19 April 1925, sec. 3, pp. 1, Curtin, 37. 6; rpt. in Nebraska State Journal, 25 April 1925, 11, and 5. Nebraska State Journal, 16 February 1896, 9; rpt. in Bohlke, 79. in Bernice Slote, The Kingdom of Art: Willa Cather’s 22. Letter, January 27, 1934, Nebraska State His- First Principles and Critical Statements, 1893–1896 torical Society, Red Cloud. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), 371. 23. Quoted in “Menace to Culture in Cinema and 6. Willa Cather to Helen Stevens Stowell, 31 August Radio Seen by Miss Cather,” Christian Science Monitor, 1888; 31 May 1889; 28 August 1889, Nebraska State 14 May 1925; rpt. in Bohlke, 156. Historical Society, Red Cloud. Testamentary restrictions 24. “The Best Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett,” in forbid direct quotation of unpublished Cather letters. Willa Cather on Writing (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 7. Willa Cather to Frederick Paul Keppel, 16 Feb- 1949), 51. ruary 1940, Columbia University Library. 25. Mason, in Bohlke, 149. 8. Quoted in Ethel M. Hockett, “The Vision of a 26. Willa Cather, Obscure Destinies (New York: Successful Fiction Writer,” Lincoln Daily Star, 24 Octo- Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), 15, 24. ber 1915; rpt. in L. Brent Bohlke, Willa Cather in Per- 27. Nebraska State Journal, 4 August 1895, 9; rpt. son (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 12– in Curtin, 237. 13. Cather made similar comments about her “florid” 28. So also are the views of the late distinguished prose in a letter to Will Owen Jones, editor of the novelist and Chaucerian scholar, John Gardner, in his Nebraska State Journal, 22 March [1927]; rpt. in book On Moral Fiction (New York: Basic Books, 1978). Bohlke, 181. Gardner says that “moral art in its highest form holds 9. Quoted in Myrtle Mason, “Nebraska Scored for up models of virtue. . . . Great art celebrates life’s poten- Its Many Laws by Willa Cather,” Omaha Bee, 30 and tial, offering a vision unmistakably and unsentimen- 31 October 1921; rpt. in Bohlke, 149. tally rooted in love. . . . In art, morality and love are 10. Hockett, in Bohlke, 14. inextricably bound; we affirm what is good—for the 11. Willa Cather to John Phillipson, 23 December characters in particular and for humanity in general— 1943, Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln and because we care” (82–84). Red Cloud. 29. “Art Now Only Rule for Writing Novels, Willa 12. Lincoln Courier, 23 November 1895, 7; rpt. in Cather Says,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 21 November Slote, 409, and Curtin, 276. 1925; rpt. in Bohlke, 167.

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30. “The Novel Démeublé,” in Not under Forty 41. “Prize Novelist Finds Writing and Eating Kin,” (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936), 50–51; rpt. in Cleveland Press, 20 November 1925; rpt. in Bohlke, 88. Willa Cather on Writing, 42. 42. Willa Cather to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, 31. “Escapism,” Commonweal 23 (April 17, 1936): 2 September [1916], University of Vermont. 677–79; rpt. in Willa Cather on Writing, 26–27. 43. “Woman’s Place,” Lincoln Courier, 28 Septem- 32. “Nanette: An Aside,” Lincoln Courier, 31 July ber 1895, 10; rpt. in Curtin, 127. 1897, 11–12; rpt. in Willa Cather’s Collected Short Fic- 44. Despite this slap at the chauvinistic Bible student, tion 1892–1912, ed. Virginia Faulkner (Lincoln: Uni- in her columns and reviews the young Willa Cather fre- versity of Nebraska Press, 1965), 408. quently expressed doubts about women writers. In her 33. Willa Cather to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, view at that time, women were born to the opera and 17 August [1927], University of Vermont; and Willa theater and not to the pen. I wonder if the mature Cather to Fanny Butcher, [September 1927], Newberry Cather remembered those early declamations. Library, Chicago. 45. Quoted in “Readers and Writers,” Nebraska 34. “On Death Comes for the Archbishop,” in Willa State Journal, 5 September 1926; rpt. in Bohlke, 90–91. Cather on Writing, 9–10, emphasis added. This piece was obviously lifted from a New York news- 35. Death Comes for the Archbishop, 116. paper and printed without attribution in the Journal, 36. “The Novel Démeublé,” 50. but the source has not been located. This kind of piracy 37. Willa Cather to Thornton Wilder, 8 October was not uncommon at the time. 1938, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, 46. “Don’t try to imitate New York. . . . It seems to Connecticut. me as I travel out through the great middle west, the 38. Willa Cather to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 28 April people are trying to imitate New York,” she reportedly 1925, Princeton University Library, Princeton, New said at dinner (in her honor) sponsored by the Nebraska Jersey. The letter is in response to Fitzgerald’s writing League of Women Voters. The statement was quoted in Cather out of concern that she might think he had bor- “‘Don’t Imitate’ Is Advice of Novelist,” Omaha World- rowed from A Lost Lady in describing the character of Herald, 30 October 1921; rpt. in Bohlke, 150. Daisy in The Great Gatsby. 47. Willa Cather to Ferris Greenslet, 24 February 39. “The Novel Démeublé,” 43–44. —, Houghton Library, Harvard University. 40. Quoted in Rose C. Feld, “Restlessness Such as Ours Does Not Make for Beauty,” New York Times Book Review, 21 December 1924; rpt. in Bohlke, 69.

84 “I Write Personal Essays to Save My Soul”:1 The Sermonic Roots of Eugene England’s Literary Voice

Travis Manning

o person reacheth Mormon literature and be another like Eugene England. He replied, “To me, NMormon studies but by England. There are Gene’s power was not only his mind and his writ- few who have contributed as great an energy as ing and his insights, but the personal example of Eugene England has to the study, critique, and someone bleeding from the pain of being misunder- promotion of literature for, by, and about those of stood, who still forged ahead. . . . Would you really The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or wish for someone else to be in that much pain?”5 Mormons. England stands nearly unmatched in Always thinking, with his 2" x4" pocket calen- his personal passion and subsequent contribution dar handy, England penned notes that would later to the genre of Mormon literature, notably through work their way into his writing.6 His hypersensi- his commitment to and critiquing of Mormon cul- tivity to paradox elicited a fascination for the ture and literature through the mouthpiece of his Prophet Joseph Smith, who said, “By proving con- personal essays.2 With his distinctive essay voice— traries, truth is manifested.”7 “Proving contraries” the philosophy of England mingled with literature and asking difficult questions became fodder for the and scripture—he confronted the difficult religious vast body of England’s personal essays. For example, paradoxes and the “contraries” of Mormon life and “Sometimes being Mormon and being human belief in an open and honest personal style, that [seem] in sharp conflict,”8 and “Though, as Mor- was Gene England. This examination intends to mons and U.S. citizens, we call ourselves Chris- get at the sermonic influences of England’s essay- tian, we consistently deny Christ’s command and ing as it deals with the sermo humilis, or “lowly, or the counsel of modern prophets.”9 “If good earthly humble style.”3 parents had a chance to send one child to a badly In his essay “Enduring,” England refers to him- run summer camp and one to an excellent one, self as “a hypocrite, a talker, an absurd posturer who where would they send the troubled child?”10 knew to do good and did it not.”4 His own recogni- England, trained in literature at Stanford Uni- tion of personal fallibility and subsequent attempt versity, became a bishop and branch president in at humility draws out his own inner tensions, ten- the Mormon church, high counselor, speaker, lec- sions that worked at his mind and heart as evidenced turer, creative writer, outdoorsman, humanitarian, in his many published writings. Many of his essays scholar, and teacher.11 He was a man who wore are indicative of the Christ-centered sermo humilis, many hats, but always he was a teacher.12 Though an intricate theological thread that wove itself into he readily admits character flaws throughout his England’s authorship. After Gene England passed personal essays, his own redeeming persona is away 17 August 2001, Salt Lake Tribune Religion played out in the positive impact he had on the editor Peggy Fletcher Stack asked Sunstone maga- lives of thousands who knew him. Eugene England zine editor Dan Wotherspoon if there would ever compiled four collections containing forty-six of

85 AML Annual 2004 his personal essays: Dialogues with Myself (1984), sentences interspersed with much smaller sentences Why the Church Is as True as the Gospel (1986), The as a rhetorical balancing act. In this long sen- Quality of Mercy (1992), and Making Peace (1995).13 tence from England’s “The Weeping God of Mor- The vast majority of his essays were first published monism” we see reference to an author, Reynolds individually in Mormon literary publications like Price; a biblical prophet, Job; a Hindu text, the Dialogue: Journal of Mormon Thought, Sunstone, Bhagavad Gita; and we see rational argument— BYU Studies, Ensign, Exponent II, AML Annual, four seminal threads in all of England’s essays. Literature and Belief, BYU Today, The Student England wrote about the challenging Mormon Review, and This People.14 issues: blacks and the priesthood, polygamy, the pro- With a religious and literary voice unabashedly gression and character of God, women and the questioning, sincere, and open, England attempted Church, Mormon intellectualism, nonviolence to engage those concerned with Mormon cul- and war, environmentalism, celibacy, Mormons as ture, arts, and letters in a “dialogue.”15 In 1966 he Christians, academic freedom and combating racism co-founded a literary journal of the same name and sexism at Brigham Young University, nuclear with G. Wesley Johnson and Paul Salisbury,16 weapons, Martin Luther King, and Shakespeare and while England was a Ph.D. student at Stanford.17 the at-onement.20 One does not necessarily read In England’s maiden 1966 editorial, he wrote, “We England’s essays for solace; in England’s essays, must truly listen to each other, respecting our “the face behind the page,” as George Orwell essential brotherhood and the courage of those referred to it, is unflinchingly resolved. In “All is who try to speak, however they may differ from us not well in Zion”:21 “I have become uneasy about in professional standing or religious belief or moral what our culture has traditionally designated the vision . . . and then our dialogue can serve both ‘masculine’ virtues of courage, pride, self-confidence, truth and charity.”18 rational assertion, generalization, decisiveness— England wrote about himself and other Mormon which, for all their apparent value, seem to leave authors, questions and fears, dreams and expecta- individuals and societies in constant, unsatisfied tions, family and friends, traditional literary char- desire, engaged in endless envy, rivalry, and imita- acters and prophets of God. He wrote about tive violence.”22 Mormonism with a boldness and literary flair, with The roots of Eugene England’s essay voice derive a meandering long-winded syntactical style decid- from the rhetorical parameters of the traditional edly his own rhetorical formulation, as indicated in Mormon sermon, cousin to the Mormon personal the following sentence: essay. These sermonic underpinnings are based upon what scholar Erich Auerbach would likely agree to [Reynolds] Price also provides a more intellec- 23 tual solace based on his own experience and his as sermo humilis. England believed Auerbach’s reading of the great religious texts, especially examination of Christian symbolism and methods Job and the Bhagavad Gita, that “the God who of historical criticism, especially of the phrase is both our omnipotent Creator and the mute sermo humilis within that context, could also be witness of so much agony . . . is what is or is in applied to the Mormon sermon. He believed that all that exists: that he is our only choice,” and this “‘lowly,’ or humble style . . . is characteristic of that since “god has made us for his glory the New Testament and of the best writing and and that glorification is pleasing to him . . . speaking through the Middle Ages—but has wouldn’t that glory be augmented by a wider increasingly been lost in rhetorical and moral pos- spectrum of light and dark in our own dim turing since then.”24 In England’s essays, the hum- eyes if we saw and granted and tried to live in ble sermon manifests itself through the telling of 19 the glare of a fuller awareness of his being?” personal experiences, literary and scriptural refer- One hundred twelve words later the reader can ences, prophetic voices, and personal testimony. breathe appropriately. England often used long Engaging the traditional American and British

86 The Sermonic Roots of Eugene England’s Literary Voice literary canon, coupled with specific allusions to where he also served in a lay leadership position as holy writ and anecdotes from Latter-day Saint his- branch president of the local Mormon congrega- torical documents, England employs these varied tion, an opportunity that provided him with texts as intentional rhetorical mechanisms. Like weekly public speaking and teaching engagements. Shakespeare, England utilized speeches, images, England had opportunity to learn and practice the and themes derived from his own Christian train- sermonic and oratorical styles that had begun to ing.25 England spoke and wrote the language of lit- influence his personal prose. erature and scripture, and he blended such phrases Spencer W. Kimball had a marked influence on and concepts with his own personal prose. Impor- the young Eugene England. Before he became a tantly, England’s essay voice was most influenced president of the LDS Church, Elder Kimball deliv- by the sermonic and oratorical styles of Mormon ered a sermon in his apostolic position that the prophets, notably Brigham Young and Spencer W. impressionable England never forgot. In his essay Kimball. about Kimball, “A Small and Piercing Voice: The After graduating from East High School in Salt Sermons of Spencer W. Kimball,” England writes, Lake City, Gene England and Charlotte Hawkins “The first sermon that I remember hearing by attended the University of Utah and the LDS reli- Spencer W. Kimball remains for me the most sur- gious institute program in the early 1950s, where prising, challenging, and influential speech in my they met religion instructors Lowell L. Bennion experience.”28 He summarizes Elder Kimball’s and Marion D. Hanks,26 who mentored England “impassioned rhetorical power” as the Apostle dis- through their examples of a Christian lifestyle. cusses the ties of various ethnic and cultural These examples nourished the roots of England’s groups. Elder Kimball wrote the sermon in rebut- spiritual foundations and subsequently his per- tal to an anonymous letter he had received, and sonal essay voice. In the mid-1950s, Gene, along which he quoted from over the pulpit; in the letter with his wife Charlotte, served for two-and-a-half the writer refers to Indian “bucks” and “squaws” years as missionaries in Samoa and Hawaii. This and their supposed inferiority to Mormons: life-altering adventure of moving halfway across O ye who hiss and spurn, despise and scoff, the world to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to who condemn and reject, and who in your native Polynesian peoples added to his theological haughty pride place yourselves above and supe- perspective and religious testimony, and it encour- rior to these Nephite–Lamanites [peoples in aged him to accept cultures and philosophies that the Book of Mormon]: I pray you to not despise were not his own. After serving the mission in them until you . . . have that faith to burn Samoa and Hawaii, Gene returned to the Univer- at the stake with the prophet Abinadi. It is pos- sity of Utah and renewed tutelage under Bennion sible that the prophet’s children may be among and Hanks. us. Some of them could be now called Lagunas In 1962 Gene enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate at or Shoshones. Stanford.27 Like his Utah mentors, he worked as a I beg of you, do not disparage the Lamanite– part-time instructor at the LDS Institute while Nephites unless you, too, have the devoutness and strength to abandon public office to do at Stanford. His sermonic voice developed over a missionary work among a despised people . .. period of time, as he studied holy scripture in insti- as did the four sons of Mosiah. . . . Their seed tute classes, as he taught native Samoan peoples the could be called Samoans or Maoris. gospel, and as he shored up his own theological I ask you: Do not scoff and ignore these and spiritual perspectives as an institute instructor. Nephite–Lamanites unless you can equal their Throughout these experiences, England also had forebears in greatness and until you can kneel opportunity to teach and serve members of his with those thousands of Ammonite Saints in local ward. In the early 1970s, England accepted a the sand on the field of battle while they sang teaching position at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, songs of praise as their very lives were being

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snuffed out by their enemies. . . . Perhaps the has been reprimanded, but it is kindly delivered children of the Ammonites are with us. They out of love, lest listeners “esteem [him] to be [their] could be called Zunis or Hopis.29 enemy” (D&C 121:43). Elder Kimball drew the England further explains that Elder Kimball’s ser- boundary line against prejudice with references to mon continues for five more examples, climaxing Book of Mormon scriptural peoples, the “Nephite– when the Apostle mentions Christ’s personal appear- Lamanites,” “Abinadi,” “sons of Mosiah,” and the ance to the Nephite and Lamanite peoples on the “Ammonites.” Kimball’s use of scriptural allusions American continent, A.D. 34. This particular address30 and of the conditional “coulds” to soften his was first heard by the newlywed Englands shortly rebuke is the locution of the sermo humilis tradi- before they left for their two-and-a-half-year mis- tion, delivering instructive Christian principles in sion to the islands. According to Gene, “It left humble diction to attract followers. Charlotte and me moved and changed: We were Like Spencer W. Kimball, England had the made ashamed of the liberal condescension of our desire to affect stereotypes and to motivate positive earlier desire to go ‘save’ the Samoans.”31 Mormon cultural change. He had the quintessen- Elder Kimball utilizes several rhetorical devices tial personal essayist’s ability to see his own person- in his speech. First of all, he relates these comments ality as problematic and to dramatize the resulting in response to a personal experience, an important tensions. In all of his personal essays, England seeks element of the sermo humilis. Essayist and scholar to live a more Christian life, despite his zest for Phillip Lopate explains, in part, the essayist’s strategy “proving contraries,” his most-oft quoted phrase of revealing self. “The spectacle of baring the naked from Joseph Smith.35 In his personal essay “Letter soul is meant to awaken the sympathy of the reader, to a College Student,” originally published in Dia- who is apt to forgive the essayist’s self-absorption in logue, England responds to a letter sent to him by a return for the warmth of his or her candor.”32 troubled young missionary who has developed concerns regarding the hierarchical superstructure The repetition of “you,” including “O ye,” “I pray and religious culture of The Church of Jesus Christ you,” “I beg of you,” “I ask you,” hints at the lan- of Latter-day Saints. Because of the community guage of prayer, not just with the obvious “I pray presence and literary persona England developed, you,” but with the sincere querying one might he was often the listening ear for the earnestly engage in when begging God for help, or answers. questioning voice. And in this friendly and earnest Notice the repetition of the phrases at the ends of rebuttal, we see England draw upon his own life’s each short paragraph: “Some of them could be now experiences, admit personal weakness, while offer called Lagunas or Shoshones,” and “Their seed could gentle encouragement. be called Samoans or Maoris.” and “They could be called Zunis or Hopis.”33 Elder Kimball utilizes Your letter caught me by surprise, not because your particular form of unhappiness spiritual language and repetition as a point of and your objections to the Church are unique— emphasis, but “there’s something more important and not only because I remember you as a per- going on here than a discussion of lineage. Elder son living in quite a different universe than the Kimball is appealing to his audience’s respect for one of sharp criticism and disillusionment which the Book of Mormon, asking his audience to you now project with such vividness. No, my transfer feelings for Book of Mormon heroes to the surprise was due mainly I think to the distance present-day Indians.”34 Kimball employs the infra- that I have moved in my own spiritual life from structure of a spiritual text as the frame for sup- constant attention to those kinds of problems. . . . porting modern cultural ethnicities. You talk about your disillusionment with There is also the bite of chastisement in this your mission, how, after committing yourself Kimball sermon, the notion that the anonymous to “offer people peace and kindness and hope,” letter writer (and anyone else with like prejudices) you found among your companions much

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“pettiness, narrowness, deceit and childishness, questioning God is integral to spiritual growth and not to mention the obnoxious piety that only moral development. “Ask and it shall be given unto those who have the One And Only Way of Truth you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be can possess.” Yes, I’ve seen those things, still do opened unto you” (3 Ne. 14:7). Perhaps questioning, 36 sometimes—in fact find them in myself. then publishing questions, was one of England’s England’s honest, open, yet direct approach is after weaknesses. the mode of the sermo humilis. England does not Brigham Young, second president of the mask his intentions. He clearly and overtly admits Church, also believed in studying and questioning that he has also had difficulty dealing with the LDS as a fundamental premise for grounding faith in Church. England lays issues out in the open, God and understanding His higher ways. There are strategically, tactfully, as his powerfully balanced nearly 800 sermons by Brigham Young in the Jour- prose is apt to do. His diction, syntax, and tone here nal of Discourses. In 1980, England published a do not create multiple layers or levels of meaning; biography, Brother Brigham. And like President he is not speaking metaphorically, though he does Kimball, Brigham also utilized the sermo humilis, employ this rhetorical element in other essays. more often in oratory, which influenced the England is honest and forthright, sincere as he rhetorical core of England’s sermonic foundation. restates the main tenets of this disgruntled opinion. Here is an example of the straightforward, faithful, He admits “surprise” at this young man’s discon- and confidently humble voice of Brigham Young, tentment, using “surprise” twice, first at the begin- 6 February 1853, as he spoke what England believed ning and then again in the very next paragraph, was “his foremost address on the central principle utilizing this tool of repetition for emphasis. In the of eternalism”: second paragraph of “Letter,” he uses the phrase The organization of man, I suppose, is one “find them in myself,” then (still in the second of the deepest and most profound studies paragraph) he repeats the exact same phrase two for philosophers and theologians there is in sentences later. England, who wrote his doctoral nature. . . . [It is] considered a mystery by the dissertation on poet Frederick Goddard Tucker- wisest and most expert philosophers that have man, understands that tight, repetitious language, lived, and is a subject that daily occupies the if used carefully, can be optimally effective. “Gene thoughts and researches of the more intelligent was a poet who loved words for their own sake, as portion of the children of men. . . . clay and canvas,” wrote Mary Bradford, an essayist To a person who thoroughly understands herself and former editor of Dialogue.37 In his let- the reason of all things, and can trace from ter response, England wants the reader to know he their effects to their true causes, mystery does is concerned with the young man’s disaffection. not exist. Yet the physical and mental existence England appears genuinely chagrined, yet admits of man is a great mystery to him. . . . to having similar dilemmas with fault-finding. The first great principle that ought to In “Letter,” England relates well to the back- occupy the attention of mankind, that should slider, the fault-finder or questioning Mormon be understood by the child and the adult, and which is the main spring of all action (whether because he has tread a similar question-fraught path people understand it or not), is the principle of in his own life. These questions, England strongly improvement. . . . believes, are an intimate and spiritually healthy All [the Saints’] earthly avocations should aspect of developing a surefooted faith in God, of a be framed upon this principle. This alone can house “founded upon a rock,” as the Apostle Peter insure to them an exaltation; this is the starting would say (Matt. 7:25). In England’s mind, ques- point, in this existence, to an endless progres- tions are tools. He takes the reference in James 1:5 sion. All the ideas, cogitations, and labors of literally, as did Joseph Smith: “If any of you lack man are circumscribed by and incorporated in wisdom, let him ask of God.” In England’s mind, this great principle of life.38

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Inherent in the logical tone of this quote is the learning how to imitate his motion of plucking faithful testimony voice of Brigham Young; he is a stalk to examine critically its forming kernels. confident and self-assured, there is the sense of He asked me to kneel with him, and he spoke, humble spiritual conviction and an educated and I thought to Christ, about the wheat. He pledged everyday diction. Notice the phrase “I suppose” in again, as I had heard him at home, to give all the first paragraph. This rhetorical and strategic the crop, all beyond our bare needs, to build the kingdom, and he claimed protection from pause (with the words “I suppose”) sets up a drought and hail and wind. I felt, beside and in humbly questioning registry. England was a pupil me, something, a person, it seemed, something of Brigham Young’s. Though they were never in more real than the wheat or the ridge or the sun, the same live company, they were in the same writ- something warm like the sun but warm inside ten company, and England admired “the great col- my head and chest and bones, someone like us onizer.” Wrote England, “Brigham Young was not but strange, thrilling, fearful but safe.40 only the greatest orator the LDS church has pro- There is the metaphorical use of simile, the com- duced, but, in both powerful content and effective parison of the inner feeling “like” the sun and the style, one of the finest orators who have used the inner influence “like us.” Again, think about the tone English Language.”39 of this paragraph, especially in the casual and nat- In the previous quote, Brigham moves from the ural scene/setting of this early spring morning, and universal to the specific, from speaking about the wider the shy awkwardness of a boy experiencing—though concept of philosophers, theologians, and human- he doesn’t seem to know at the time—what he later kind to speaking about individuals, “the child and believes to have been a spiritual experience of sorts, the adult.” This articulated move from the big pic- during his father’s prayer. There is a simplicity and ture to the small encourages listeners (or readers) softness, a humility in the author’s delivery. There to identify with the generic “child” and “adult.” is a steadiness in the narrative voice as he describes Brigham moves logically through his sermon, mat- in near poetic language this personal experience: ter-of-factly, confidently. His voice is the expres- “He asked me to kneel with him, and he spoke, sion of steady focus and faith. I thought to Christ, about the wheat.” and “I felt, England is also effective at moving the reader beside and in me, something, a person, it seemed, from the big picture to the small in his own writing something more real than the wheat or the ridge or (or small to big, which he most often employed), the sun, something warm like the sun but warm while maintaining nondidactic explanations. Like inside my head and chest and bones, someone like Brigham Young, England utilizes a steady focus and us but strange, thrilling, fearful but safe.” My ear faith in his personal essay voice. In “Enduring,” England recounts a boyhood experience while he can sense the line breaks in the meter of this narra- was out doing chores with his father on the family’s tive (“He asked me to kneel with him, / and he southeastern Idaho farm. (Pay careful attention to spoke, / I thought / to Christ, / about the wheat.”). the tone.) I can hear the repetition of the words “something,” “or,” “and,” and “but” that move the sentence One June dawn we drove toward the reservoir along, rhythmically, purposefully. This first-person farm for a day of weeding the fallow ground. reflective voice is after the tradition of the sermo He would drive the tractor. I was old enough humilis. There is no pulpit-pounding. There is no to ride the twenty-four-foot rod weeders, jumping off to tromp away stubble as it accu- fire and brimstone. Yet there is spiritual content. mulated around the goosenecks and rods. That Readers are left to educe deeper meaning from the morning, as he often did, he stopped the truck words on their own. England does not force readers and took me to see how the wheat was heading to experience this essay, but rather in his casual, poetic out in that lower 320. We kept our feet between conversation style of writing allows them to sense a the rows as we walked out on a ridge, I just deeper spiritual realization embedded within the

90 The Sermonic Roots of Eugene England’s Literary Voice text. Novelist Levi Peterson said about England that arms potential authoritative opponents by using “his theory of an essay was—and he lived up to it the words of the potential critics themselves. Bert in his practice—was that narrative detail should Wilson, folklore professor and lifelong friend, suggest theme and interpretation to the reader; the understood this about England. “He was an expert author had no business pointing out what they at twisting statements of General Authorities to fit added up to.”41 his own purposes. He would take a statement made England learned about “educing” meaning from by one of his critics among the Brethren and then literary texts from longtime friend Lowell L. Bennion, use it to support his own argument. This probably “among the gentlest and meekest of men, constantly drove some of them right up the wall. How could conciliatory and nonconfrontive.”42 Brother Bennion, they jump on him when he was merely quoting a professor, humanitarian, institute instructor, men- what they had said themselves. When I pointed tor to thousands, was also an accomplished author this out to him, he usually said nothing but smiled who wrote for both independent and official Mor- wickedly.”48 mon periodicals and published widely in the Because England often wrote for and about Mormon market for over fifty years. Bennion educated Mormon people, many Mormon intel- wrote with a “sound logic” and “simple goodness” lectuals knew England, personally and through his that was, according to England, his “great gift and published work (though England discouraged the the heart of his legacy.”43 Intrinsic to Bennion’s use of the word “intellectual” because he felt it approach to teaching and essaying was his ability to unfairly labeled those within the Mormon com- ask the humble question or to suggest the humble munity concerned with Mormon literature). And answer. Whether Bennion was conscious of it or because of his ability to make and keep friends, both not, his approach was modeled after the sermo within the LDS Church and without—including humilis tradition, a tradition that deeply impacted those who backslid from their original Mormon the personal essaying of Eugene England.44 ideology—England was intimately familiar with Like those of Brigham Young and Lowell Bennion, his audience, and they with him. This connection, England’s thoughtful arguments and resulting per- this transaction of ethos, or ethical appeal, based on suasiveness, his willingness to entertain opposing the charisma of the speaker plays large in England’s views are key to his rhetorical strengths. Longtime effectiveness as a writer and public speaker. friend and colleague Bruce Jorgensen believes that England’s literary personae stands paramount in Eugene England was well suited for the personal his ability to engage in often controversial dialogue essay:45 “I think he found the genre personally on religious, philosophical, and other Mormon congenial, a chance to be himself, to use a voice he hot-button issues such as blacks and the priest- needed to use, neither scholarly nor quite sermonic, hood, BYU politics, and prejudice at all levels. He and to explore what mattered to him personally, worked tirelessly to prompt the repentant and literarily, and religiously. I don’t think that for him, unrepentant Mormon—always including himself finally, those three categories were separable: the in both categories—toward honest and deliberate personal essay was a place where Gene could essay confrontation of their own personal testimony and to be Gene.”46 relationship with Deity. England’s ultimate philo- But England was not without flaws in his essay sophical and theological position within Mormon voice. His long-windedness and long, loose sentences arts and letters was the cultural and political middle tended toward “unwieldy shapelessness, something ground, though he spent a good portion of his life that can come along with a conversational style.”47 perceived as being far outside center. By and large, England’s discussions and arguments In a 15 April 2001 interview with California are thoroughly and carefully crafted, well researched, journalist Louisa Dalton, England explained his fas- and peer reviewed for theological and grammatical cination with the personal essay, specifically with accuracy. England’s rhetorical use of sources dis- the intriguing notion of opposition as construct for

91 AML Annual 2004 interpreting universal truth. He often referred to Gene England firmly believed in the literary them not only as contraries, but also as “polarities,” potential of the Mormon personal essay, cousin to “antitheses,” “paradoxes,” “contradictions,” “prob- the Mormon sermon, and in “dipping the bucket” lems,” “struggles,” and “dialectics.” For example, into his own culture and life. England delivered how could Christ be both just and merciful? How these words on the matter as a speech for Dialogue’s could we lose our life for God’s sake in order to twentieth anniversary banquet, held in Salt Lake find it? How could God love humankind yet allow City on 27 August 1987. suffering? “I’m very attracted to paradox and con- I am perhaps most delighted that Dialogue tradictions,” said England. “Many of my essays published, encouraged—even helped many attempt to prove contraries, to explore what seems Mormons first learn to write and appreciate— like a contradiction and hope that the process it- the personal essay. I am convinced that that self will reveal truth greater than either part of the particular literary form, which has only recently contradiction.”49 begun to achieve its proper recognition in world In this same interview, he also spoke of deci- literature, best expresses the Mormon theologi- sions he had made regarding provocative personal cal and cultural qualities: It allows us to bear essay topics, dialectical topics, mentioned previ- witness, in effectively artistic ways, to our per- ously. Steady as ever, and only a few months before sonal religious and moral experience and to the dying of brain cancer, England discloses personal development of our eternal selves as children of regrets: “I could have done better writing, I could God and members of a covenant community. have avoided some of the mistakes I’ve made when It encourages in us the most effective kind of voice, that of the great writers of scriptures and I’ve challenged things I probably shouldn’t have.50 givers of sermons in our tradition—from It just caused pain and difficulty there, rather than Nephi and Alma and Mormon to Joseph and increased understanding. And if I had listened to Brigham and Spencer: The voice is rooted in Charlotte and not published certain things, it might the extremes of honest revealed feeling and 51 have been better. So I’m still learning.” Ever the experience, from doubt and inadequacy and teacher, ever the student. It is also intriguing to anguish to exalted faith and love and encoun- think that the scar Eugene England had on his ters with divinity. It is the voice that seems to scalp after brain surgery was what his wife Char- come more naturally in modern Mormon litera- lotte described to Margaret Young as a “backwards ture to Mormon women.55 . .. Dialogue has for question mark.”52 One can only surmise the back- twenty years published most of the best writing wards question mark symbolized England’s ability by Mormon women and has also encouraged to ask the difficult question, the unorthodox ques- Mormon men to develop that same honest, tion, the faith-promoting question. meek, and thus more genuinely powerful, In referring to England’s book Why the Church prophetic voice that makes the personal essay work. That voice, in that genre, can, I believe, Is as True as the Gospel, Mormon and science fiction not only help us develop a more valuable Mor- author Orson Scott Card wrote: “England is walk- mon literary culture but may become our ing the narrow path on which our feet are also set, major contribution to world literature.55 he is holding firmly to the Iron Rod to which we also cling, and because of that his words of encour- There is much to be said for the personal essay agement and chastisement, of insight and illumi- and its artistic potential. How will the world ever nation, all have meaning to us.”53 Always the pivot learn who Mormons are if we never tell them? in his essays is the personal experience point of Others will tell them incorrectly. Personal essays view; what scholar Candadai Seshachari refers to as are one way of telling the world who we are, both “cast[ing] down [the] bucket into the life-giving within the Church and without. There is also much waters of [one’s] own culture and into the stream of to be said for Utah Valley State College’s only Mor- [one’s] own inner self.”54 mon Studies program on the planet. At colleges and

92 The Sermonic Roots of Eugene England’s Literary Voice universities today there are centers for Middle East- 4. Eugene England, “Enduring,” Dialogue (Winter ern and Islamic studies, women’s studies, gay and 1983): 106; also found in Irreantum 3.3 (Autumn 2001): lesbian studies, Hispanic studies, African Ameri- 29–37; also found in Dialogues with Myself, 191–205. can studies, Asian studies, Catholic, Hindu, and 5. Peggy Fletcher Stack, “LDS Peacemaker’s Death Jewish studies, but no Mormon studies. Well, now Leaves Intellectual Void,” Salt Lake Tribune, 1 Septem- we have one. As we look ahead into the twenty-first ber 2001, C-1. century, ahead to the challenges and opportunities 6. See author interview transcript with Charlotte for Mormons, Mormon writers and artists, and those England, 19 February 2003. According to Charlotte, even concerned with issues involving Mormonism, I sug- as a child, Gene did a lot of thinking and forming of gest we also take time to look back. Let us utilize ideas while driving tractor on the family’s Idaho wheat the Mormon personal essay to look both forward farm. 7. History of the Church, 6:428. and backward. By displaying his own Mormon 8. Eugene England, “On Being Mormon and individuality, Eugene England reminds us of ours. Human,” Sunstone (April 2001): 74. It is time Mormons realize it is acceptable to exam- 9. Eugene England, “On Trusting God, or Why ine our own cultural and religious roots. Like fine We Should Not Fight Iraq,” Sunstone 14.5 (October cheese, Mormons have been around a while—and 1990): 9. we just keep getting better. 10. Eugene England, “Are All Alike Unto God? It’s been nearly 173 years since the Prophet Prejudice against Blacks and Women in Popular Mor- Joseph Smith organized The Church of Jesus mon Theology,” Sunstone 14.2 (April 1990): 20. Christ of Latter-day Saints. We’ve had 173 years to 11. LDS Church positions such as bishop, branch age, to pioneer the West, to work for equality among president, and high counselor are lay clergy assign- women, men, and minorities, to have more mem- ments, as are most other church positions. bers of the Church outside the United States than 12. In “On Spectral Evidence,” England says: “As inside. We’ve had nearly two centuries between us for me, my job is to teach students in ways that can and Governor Boggs and the militias of the Midwest. improve the moral quality of their lives, including using It’s been over a century since Mountain Meadows what I learn from the Brethren and from literature and and polygamy. The Mormon past is as imperfect experience and the Spirit—and to try meticulously as the Mormon present. We will not turn to salt as never to resort to spectral evidence myself. My role is did Lot’s wife for looking back. We will not forget certainly not to use the imagined weaknesses of others to remember who we are—who we really are—who or problems in the Church as an excuse for my own fail- we can become, and who we’ve been. But looking ings or to lash out in kind” (in Making Peace [Salt Lake ahead requires that we also look back. City: Signature Books, 1995], 41). 13. Eugene England published four collections of personal essays: Dialogues with Myself (Salt Lake City: NOTES Signature Books, 1984), Why the Church Is as True as the Gospel (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1986), The Qual- 1. Eugene England comment at first annual Mor- mon Writers Conference held at Utah Valley State Col- ity of Mercy (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992), and lege, 1999. This quote found in author’s personal notes. Making Peace. 2. I will use the terminology “essay” and “personal 14. “Eugene did not have a hand in the formation essay” simultaneously. However, in the subgenre of per- or editing of BYU Studies. But he was given an award sonal essaying, there are many subcategories that divide on the 40th anniversary of the journal for ‘author most up the term “essay,” for example, environmental and published in the journal’s history.’ Or something like that. travel narratives, history and philosophical essays. And we were (I as dean) able to get increased funding 3. “Many of the best modern personal essays are for BYUS when Dallin Oaks was asked by the Brethren reworked sermons, showing the close connection between to give BYU scholars a place to publish in lieu of Dialogue. these two forms” (Eugene England, “Mormon Literature: He did not have a hand in the founding of Literature Progress and Prospects,” Irreantum 3.3 [Autumn 2001]: and Belief, but he was very supportive and contributed 90, n. 87). a number of articles in the early issue and published his

93 AML Annual 2004 book on Norris in connection with L&B. You know, of good. And others will he pacify, and lull them away into course, of his membership on the Sunstone Board at carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; the end of his life; he was always very supportive of yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil Sunstone. He was careful not to have too high a profile cheateth their souls and leadeth them away carefully in many of these journals as he felt, with some justifica- down to hell” (2 Ne. 28: 18–21). Gideon Burton has tion, that his name carried the Dialogue onus which also remarked in his essay “The Literary Legacy of newly founded LDS-centered journals did not want to Eugene England,” Irreantum 3.3 (Autumn 2001), that have—publicly at least. He influenced, via Dialogue, “he [Eugene England] was no armchair dilettante. the foundation of the short-lived journal The Carpen- Gene was driven by his dissatisfactions as much as by ter, in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1968–1972, edited by his optimism.” Thomas D. Schwartz, with Richard H. Cracroft and 22. Eugene England, “On Being Male and Melchi- Edward Kimball as associate editors—we saw ourselves zedek,” Dialogue 23.4 (Winter 1990): 73. as the eastern (Midwestern) Dialogue, but after about 23. England made use of Erich Auerbach’s discus- eight issues folded. Obviously, his influence on all the sion and definition of the Latin term sermo humilis in journals you note was significant and persuasive. He his own essay about President Spencer W. Kimball: “A pushed—and got published—many articles by others, Small and Piercing Voice: The Sermons of Spencer W. as well as his own” (Richard H. Cracroft to author, Kimball,” in Why the Church Is as True as the Gospel, email, 10 February 2003). 125–27; see also Erich Auerbach, Literary Language 15. Many more of his sermons, essays, scholarly and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle papers, reviews, creative works, and chapters in books Ages (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1965), espe- were published in books and other periodicals, but many cially 25–66. remain unpublished. Also of note, England wrote many 24. “Small and Piercing Voice,” 127. columns for and Letters to the Editor to the Deseret 25. See Eugene England, “Shakespeare and At- News and the Salt Lake Tribune, which can be accessed Onement of Jesus Christ,” 34. Also, with regards to via their respective online archives. Shakespeare and audience, while England was professor 16. England indicates that Johnson and Salisbury of English at BYU, England said his own audience there were both “original editors” (see Eugene England, “Grow- was merely comparable to Shakespeare’s original audi- ing Up Mormon: Maturity for a New Era,” Dialogue ence in Stratford and London. England did not intend 6.1 [Spring 1971]: 109). to publish a New York Times best-seller. And he didn’t 17. Other early Dialogue collaborators included care. England’s audience was methodically Mormon. Francis Menlove, Joe Jeppson, and Diane Saderup Mon- He didn’t want to write for those outside the Mor- son, who thought to get the discussion going between mon faith. All are welcome to read his writing, but the group members in the first place. audience is specifically chosen: those with a Mormon 18. Eugene England, “The Possibility of Dialogue,” connection. England also wrote that his favorite all- in Dialogues with Myself, 41. time character and piece of literature are Hamlet and 19. Eugene England, “The Weeping God of Mor- King Lear, respectively. monism,” Dialogue 35.1 (Spring 2002): 65. 26. T. Edgar Lyon was also an influential institute 20. See England’s four volumes of personal essays teacher. But as far as I know, England did not write cited previously, including the original citations in the about Lyon, only about Bennion and Hanks, who is literary journals also mentioned previously. All topics now an emeritus member of the Quorum of the Seventy were first published in individual journals, then in his in the LDS Church. personal essay anthologies. 27. England worked with poet Ivor Winters, whom 21. “Zion,” in this interpretation, as being any place he admired greatly, says Charlotte England. “Ivor had a where members of the LDS Church presently reside; as sensitive personality, and though he was an eccentric pertains to the Book of Mormon definition, where it person—most poets are—Gene liked his spirit, and he discusses the “great and abominable church” and how was moved by his personal touch with people.” England “the kingdom of the devil must shake.” “For behold, at also had opportunity to work with writer Wallace Stegner that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of while at Stanford. men, and stir them up to anger against that which is 28. “Small and Piercing Voice,” 125.

94 The Sermonic Roots of Eugene England’s Literary Voice

29. Ibid., 126–27. Humanitarian (Salt Lake City: Dialogue Foundation, 30. Given originally at BYU’s devotional exercises, 1995). 13 February 1951, and published in the “Church Sec- 45. The essay is often considered a subset of non- tion” of the Deseret News, 28 February 1951, this speech fiction writing, or, Fourth Genre—after poetry, fiction, was repeated in various forms and quoted in subsequent and drama. speeches by President Kimball—for instance, as “Immod- 46. Bruce Jorgensen, personal email to author, esty in Dress” at the Portland State quarterly conference 7 November 2002. MIA session, 9 September 1956, and as part of his 47. Bruce Young, personal email to author, 7 Novem- devotional address at BYU, 12 September 1978. This ber 2002. endnote found in England’s essay on Kimball in Why 48. Bert Wilson, personal email to author, 13 Novem- the Church Is as True as the Gospel. ber 2002. 31. “Small and Piercing Voice,” 127. 49. Louisa Wray Dalton, interview with Eugene 32. Introduction, in The Art of the Personal Essay, ed. England, 15 April 2001, transcript in author’s posses- Philip Lopate (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1994), xxvi. sion. Dalton, a BYU graduate, wrote the profile on 33. The “coulds” in these last phrases soften Presi- England for a class on essay writing while attending dent Kimball’s suggestions that there “could” be a link UC–Santa Cruz. Her interview is thought to be between the ancient Book of Mormon peoples and England’s last, as England passed away 17 August 2001. modern-day ethnicities. But, some may have not read 50. England comments in his last interview with any of Kimball’s other teachings, where he explicitly Louisa Wray Dalton about how he would promote believes that the ancient Book of Mormon peoples are peace differently: “Yes, peace is important, of course. in fact the forefathers of some of these other cultural It’s related to mercy. I really think that’s the only way to groups. bring peace in the open. I think force always begets 34. Harlow Clark, personal email to author, 17 Feb- force. I think even arguing violently for peace is a good ruary 2003. way to increase violence. And I’ve been guilty of that 35. “By proving contraries, truth is made manifest” sometimes. In my book Making Peace, the arguments I (History of the Church, 6:428). make there against violence may not be as important 36. Eugene England, “Letter to a College Student,” as my essay in there called ‘Monte Cristo,’ which just in Personal Voices section of Dialogue (Autumn/Winter describes what peace is like. So I’m trying to get to a 1973): 178–80; also found in Dialogues with Myself, point where I can describe peace as maybe the best way 43–48. to help people find it. If I can get through the experi- 37. Mary Bradford, personal letter to the author, ence I’m in right now [brain cancer], I’d like to write 31 December 2002. about it in an essay or book called Being Here—what it 38. Eugene England, “Brigham Young as Orator is like to be, rather than so actively doing or changing.” and Intellectual,” in Why the Church Is as True as the 51. Louisa Wray Dalton interview. Also, Charlotte Gospel, 98. edited much of England’s writing. She commented on 39. Ibid., 93–94. the subject in a personal interview with the author. 40. Eugene England, “Enduring,” Dialogue (Win- “I think what I could do was view Gene’s writings from ter 1983): 106; also found in Irreantum 3.3 (Autumn a reader’s point of view. I could read anything he wrote 2001): 29–37; also found in Dialogues with Myself, and knew what he was saying. But, without that con- 191–205. stant background which I had, with working with him 41. Levi Peterson, personal email to author, 6 Novem- all the time, as he was writing . . . it could be jarring to ber 2002. some people that didn’t understand him as a person.” 42. Introduction, in The Best of Lowell L. Bennion, 52. Margaret Young, post to AML-List, 7 March Selected Writings 1928–1988, ed. Eugene England (Salt 2001. Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988), xii. 53. Orson Scott Card, “Eugene England and the 43. Eugene England, “The Legacy of Lowell L. Lighted Lamp,” in A Storyteller in Zion (Salt Lake City: Bennion,” Sunstone (September 1996): 27. Bookcraft, 1993), 179. 44. See The Best of Lowell L. Bennion; see also Mary 54. Candadai Seshachari, “Insights from the Out- Lythoge Bradford, Lowell L. Bennion, Teacher, Counselor, side: Thoughts for the Mormon Writer,” in Arts and

95 AML Annual 2004

Inspiration, Mormon Perspectives, ed. Steven P. Sondrup Sorensen liked to travel to her childhood home in Utah, (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press), 25. and on one such planned occasion, the BYU English 55. See Eugene England’s essay “Virginia Sorensen Department sponsored a workshop on her writing. as the Founding Foremother of the Mormon Personal England delivered his paper wherein he described the Essayists,” Exponent II 17.1 (1992): 12–14. England wonderful personal literary qualities of Sorensen’s first- delivered this paper twice: first, “Virginia Sorensen as person narrative fiction voice. England felt that the Personal Essayist,” paper read at Symposium for Vir- quality of this self-reflective narrator qualified her as ginia Sorensen, BYU, October, 1988; second, “Virginia the “foremother” of the Mormon personal essay, Sorensen As the Founding Foremother of the Mormon though her collection of short stories, Where Nothing Is Personal Essay,” paper read at Association for Mor- Long Ago: Memories of a Mormon Childhood (1963), was mon Letters, Ogden, Utah, January 1989. It must be fiction. The Author’s Note further states that “Sorensen noted that Virginia Sorensen disputed England’s claim did not agree with his premise and said so. Just before that she was in fact a personal essayist. England indi- she found out how ill she was, she had agreed to write a cates in the article “Founding Foremother” published rebuttal to be published with his essay in Exponent II.” in Exponent II that he had originally read the paper with As far as I know, the rebuttal was never published. Sorensen sitting four feet in front of him. England con- 56. Eugene England, “On Building the Kingdom tinues: “It became worse when she rose at the end of the with Dialogue,” Dialogue 21.2 (Summer 1988): 131– hour, fixed me with her clear eyes and, with only a 32; see also “The Possibility of Dialogue,” the original slight smile, told me that it was hard for her to accept editorial for the first issue of Dialogue, in Dialogues with my allegations of literal truth-telling and designation of Myself, 39–42. See also Gene’s explicit affirmation and her as an essayist rather than a fictionist.” In an Author’s promotion of the personal essay genre in “Mormon Lit- Note in the Exponent II piece, it states that Virginia erature: Progress and Prospects,” 91–92.

96 Bridging the Divide: Writing about Spirit for the National Young Adult Market

Kimberly Heuston

his session will address the process of writing that we really couldn’t afford. For the next hour or Tand editing a mainstream work of Young Adult so, we learned about the Shakers, a celibate religious historical fiction, The Shakeress (Asheville, NC: Front community whose spare, beautiful furniture is a Street Books, 2002), for a national market. My perfect symbol of the creative ingenuity that lies at editor, Stephen Roxburgh, is known in the trade as the heart of their attempts to make a heaven on earth. the “Prince of Darkness” because of his willingness It was, as I have already said, a magical afternoon, to push the envelope in young adult fiction. Why one of those times which seems to confirm our was he willing to acquire the book? What has its hope that God is in his heaven and all is right with reception been? And why is it so hard for me to tell the world. When I began an MFA in writing for people what it is really about? children six months later and was told that my first task as a writer for children would be to get rid Five and a half years ago, my daughter Jennifer and of my character’s parents, I thought that if someone I were driving through southern New Hampshire were to get rid of me I hoped my children would on our way to do some school shopping when we find people like the Shakers to love them and teach passed as small brown sign that said, “Shaker Village, them that good work is the finest and most endur- next exit.” The traditional response whenever our ing form of creation and, hence, of worship. car passes a small brown sign that might be point- That’s how The Shakeress began—not as a mis- ing to anything even faintly educational is an erup- sionary tract, but as an exploration of the way a tion of howls and loud retching noises from the girl like me, or like my daughter, would go about back seat, and I braced myself for the inevitable. rebuilding her life if her family were taken away But we’d left the boys at home. With some from her. I told the story as honestly as I could. awe, I realized that on that beautiful, magical, sun- Because the way I rebuild the parts of my life that dappled afternoon my only companion was my get smashed is by asking God to help, that’s what small blonde well-behaved daughter. “Jen,” I asked, Naomi does, too. She does so in a variety of reli- scarcely able to believe the opportunity that was gious languages, as I imagined a girl living during mine. “Shall we stop?” the Great Awakening might. Her parents are Bap- She made a face and shook her head, but I am tists, her aunt is a Presbyterian, and she is herself a bigger than she is, and a few minutes later we Shakeress for most of the book, as the title suggests emerged from a wooded lane into a well-tended (although that’s not its original title, which was settlement set on a knoll overlooking rolling acres Seasoned with Grace). She ends up Mormon, of farmland. The prospect was so peaceful and because that’s the spiritual framework that I under- enticing that, although we hadn’t planned on stay- stand best and is most compelling to me. But The ing, we parked and bought two tour admissions Shakeress is not a primer on early Mormon beliefs;

97 AML Annual 2004 if it’s a primer on anything, it’s a primer on finding trace out the glorious paths of those who have gone meaning, purpose, and solace in realities big and before, but which also remind them that they are sturdy enough to withstand our personal tragedies, not alone in their awkwardness and their pride— no matter how shattering they may be. It is a book stories that confirm that what exists now can be about spirit, about that part of the self that tran- changed, that the dreams of the spirit persist scends physical, describable reality, which holds beyond dislocation of every circumstance. steady across the ravages of time, which if I may, is Another way of saying this is that young people eternal, rather than temporal. are beginning to move away from focusing on the In this I am not so different from many other what of life as they begin to puzzle through the how. writers for young adults. Adolescence is, after all, The how may be construed in terms of the unfold- the season in life when we begin to define ourselves ing of personal relationships (i.e., friend stories, against the various cultures that intersect in our family stories, and romances) or in the way a soci- lives. Just as young children are fascinated by the ety absorbs a new technology, idea, or threat (i.e., material physicality of life—the specific textures, science fiction, fantasy, and thrillers) or, most directly, smells, and tastes of the natural world—so adoles- in biographies of every variety, from sports figures cents are fascinated by the ways all that stuff comes and entertainers to Holden Caulfield and Huck Finn. together into the patterns of life. Young people My editor said much the same thing to me when, search for people to admire with the eagle-eyed in preparation for this occasion, I asked him why determination characteristic of newly mobile babies he had been interested in my manuscript: to search and destroy. What do teenagers want to It seems to me that so much of what kids are destroy? Ways of being that they experience as futile dealing with either overtly or implicitly are what or misguided. What are they looking for? A person I would consider spiritual issues, even though who can teach them a better way. And when they they may not be cast in terms of what we would find that person, they imitate the way he combs his think of as religion. . . . The search for identity hair, the way she laughs, and they repeat the anointed is always the center of [Young Adult] books, one’s jokes and taglines with all the solemnity of a [and] it takes many forms. In some cases it’s an sacred ritual. You can always tell when there’s a popu- artistic sensibility, in some cases it’s a pragmatic lar new teacher in our upper school by the manner- sensibility, in places it’s a vocation or profession. isms that start cropping up in class. Lots of scarves? The form it has taken in your book, it seems to Those senior girls must have Ms. Rhoton for cre- me, is a quest for her on a spiritual level. It’s about identifying a spiritual path, realizing there is such ative writing. Enthusiastic journal descriptions of a a thing, struggling with it, trying to find it.1 simplified life devoted to mornings and evenings of scientific research interrupted by afternoons spent Lots of people are interested in finding and skiing? They’re in AP Physics with Mr. Shorthill. exploring spiritual paths. But, like those first dis- The innocent arrogance of the young, fueled orienting, sleep-deprived, and joyful months of sometimes by the desperation of the powerless, motherhood or the excruciatingly lonely grief of allows them to believe that anything is possible, single parents watching wounds they are helpless that the intensity of their desire must be sufficient to prevent scar their beloved children, finding a cause for the creation of the perfect life only they path toward God is not a part of the human jour- are clever enough to see. At the same time, a more ney that gets a lot of public press. When I say pub- humble, better-hidden part of their brains is sear- lic, I suppose I mean popular press, because of course ingly aware of the ways in which they do not there are huge numbers of subcultures that special- match up to whatever standards are meaningful to ize in documenting and discussing every aspect of them—the front cover of Cosmopolitan magazine, new motherhood or single parenthood or spiritual- the Super Bowl defensive line, Mother Theresa. ity. But they speak dialects that are as incomprehen- They ache for the balm of stories that not only sible to the world of Walmart and People magazine

98 Bridging the Divide: Writing about Spirit for the National Young Adult Market as are Sanskrit and hieroglyphics. There is no pub- would have been invisible to Naomi, who lived lic language to describe the process of coming to 750 miles away in what we would today call the God in a way that is equally meaningful to all who “mission field.” Someday I would very much like hear it, as there is to describe the pleasures of food to see what happens to her when she gets to Kirt- or sex, the demands of the business world, or the land and has to deal with the “word made flesh,” bittersweet negotiations of family life. That’s why I when she must negotiate a place for herself in a mumble a lot when people ask me about my book, community distinct in important ways from her at least people like my college roommate, a secular own conversion. But The Shakeress is not that book. Jew for whom the words of Christian conversion Why is this a book for the national market? carry the burden of centuries of oppression, or my Because in the final analysis, Naomi does not join Episcopalian friend, for whom any reference to the LDS Church because of its institutional gifts Joseph Smith brings up distasteful associations of or the Word of Wisdom or Family Home Evening or frontier polygamy and insularity. I know what to their 1830s functional equivalents. She joins because tell my Mormon friends. Hey, it’s a conversion story. she hears God telling her to. We don’t know how it Most of you probably know pretty much what to will turn out for her. We just know that she has been expect now. But there are no public words, no pub- calling to God and that when she most needed him lic scripts that allow me to say the same thing he answered in ways meaningful to her. That has beyond my own subculture without being under- been the story of my life, and that is the story I stood to be proselytizing in a peculiarly embarrass- wanted to tell. ing and clumsy way. Both the promise and the peril of telling stories The impoverishment of our national language lies in the fact that these stories are not completed by contemporary culture’s secularization is not a new by you, the author, but by the reader. The promise idea. Andrew Delbanco, for one, has written a mar- is that those readers who are part of your audience velous book called The Death of Satan (New York: take your few words and amplify them with all the Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1995) that addresses this capacity of their hearts, minds, and souls, magnify- subject with eloquence and passion, and there are ing and adorning them with the rich materials of many other popular and scholarly texts on the same their own life experiences. The peril is that readers topic. The way I get around the lack of a contem- who are not prepared, who have no interest in your porary spiritual vocabulary in The Shakeress is by topic or little germane experience, find so much setting it in a time and place where people were not less than you put in because their own hearts and afraid to talk about spiritual issues, and they did so minds don’t know how to create meaning from the in the language of organized religion. clues you have given them. Katherine Paterson once Not every reader, however, is willing or able to said something similar to me: make that imaginative leap back in time with me. Those who conflate any discussion of the spiritual The ending of Jacob Have I Loved is an example journey with the promulgation of, as my editor of that. They want me to say that Louise has a would say, “specific religious orthodoxies,”2 find profession of faith and then goes and throws herself on her sister’s bosom and confesses all of The Shakeress’s presentation of the LDS faith puz- her sins and—No, no, no! All she has to do is zlingly vague and inadequate. They attribute this hear the first two lines of “I wonder as I wan- state of affairs to my putative desire to conceal der.” And it’s left to the reader to, one, remem- various unsavory and discredited early Mormon ber the rest of the song and, two, to understand beliefs, i.e., polygamy. They are mistaken. First of what’s happened in her heart, which I think is all, of course, neither polygamy nor most other dis- a reconciliation with her sister. You do that tinctively Mormon practices like the United Order subtly, and if the reader isn’t ready for that, had yet been instituted. Second, even if Mormon then the reader doesn’t come to that conclu- cultural practices had been alive and kicking, they sion, and the reader has a choice as to how to

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read the story. And it’s not up to the writer to own.” And that’s really a great gift, I think. To dictate. It’s no longer your story. The writer pass on what knowledge, what belief we have, does not convert. Only the Spirit converts. and then send them out to do what they can We’ve all been changed by books, but we’ve with what we’ve given them, and to release them chosen to change.3 to go on—that’s a kind of transcendence.4 I would not presume to write a book that pur- That is the work that children’s writers do. And ports to convert because I can’t; it’s a fool’s errand. when we do it well we are not only suggesting spe- That is the one great lesson that every real grown- cific solutions to aspects of the human dilemma up has learned: none of us has the power to control but also modeling the cycle of questioning, find- another human being. The best we can hope for is ing, and finally returning to share—that is the to offer our own experience, with all its pain and essence of the spiritual quest. confusion and hard-won joy, and to do so with the humility and truthfulness and love that invites NOTES the Spirit to become co-creator with author and 1. Stephen Roxburgh, telephone interview, 13 Sep- reader. Lois Lowry says it even better, as she so tember 2002. often does: 2. Ibid. In essence, what we do as writers is what we 3. Katherine Paterson, personal interview, 8 August can for other people. . . . We give them what 1998. gifts we can, and then we say “you’re on your 4. Lois Lowry, telephone interview, 14 August 1998.

100 Real Life, Who Needs It? Real World Influences on the Writing of Young Adult Fiction

Randall Wright

O! that the Desert were my dwelling place, experience in this strange landscape leaves him With one fair Spirit for my minister, wondering whether he can cope with life in his That I might all forget the human race, new home. And, hating no one, love but only her! After Brett died, Elam discovered that he George Gordon, Lord Byron—Childe Harold liked being alone in the mountains, hiking (Canto IV, St. 177) through the ponderosa pines, exploring the f a place can be said to be alive, to have character crags and canyons and grassy meadows. It Iand awareness, a volition and will of its own, that made him feel big as the trees—like he was place is the saguaro haunted wilderness of southern part of the mountains themselves. When he Arizona. Known as The Great Sonoran Desert, it is was alone like that, he could feel as if Brett a place where the heat siphons away both moisture were still with him. and motivation and leaves its inhabitants burned But today, when he stepped across the brittle. Thorny plants and animals reflect the hard back road toward the desert canyon, he shrank nature of life in this desert. It is a forbidding place inside. He felt out of place among the strange that brands those born to it with a keen affection as noises that buzzed and snapped through the dry air. powerful as any love, a mark that remains on the soul despite time and distance. He carefully made his way down the near In A Hundred Days from Home, my novel of the slope. Bizarre plants and shrubs scattered the hillside: emerald-skinned trees with miniature desert, I have tried to fill the hole in my life where leaves and thorny branches; dark green bushes that desert used to be. This novel is a story of loss, that gave off a pungent aroma that reminded prejudice, friendship, healing, and magic—all themes Elam of freshly oiled railroad ties; cacti of born out of my experiences as a boy growing up in assorted shapes and sizes from tiny pin cush- a place that left an indelible imprint on my psyche. ions to giant armed sentinels. He peered intently Though by no means autobiographical, still, it is into the shadows beneath the strange plants, an account of myself. Through its words, details of wondering what kind of life they might harbor. my own reality may be uncovered. From the corner of his eye he thought he A Hundred Days tells the story of Elam, a boy caught a movement, but when he turned to transplanted from the mountains that he loves to look there was no sign that anything on the a small mining town deep in the desert. Already hillside had ever changed. struggling with the loss of his best friend, Brett, to “Is someone there?” drowning a year earlier, Elam, ironically, finds him- He frowned at the harsh sound of his own self in a place where the only rivers are dry arroyos voice—an intrusion that was quickly swallowed filled with sand and shimmering heat. His first by the blistering air. (18–19)

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The desert of my memory is a place of solitude, in the desert outside our small mining community but a solitude in which it is impossible to be alone. where rocks and boulders piled upon each other to There is a feeling of expectancy, of watchfulness, form enchanted castles and grand palaces. It is one almost of ill-will in the dry heat that rattles against of those disjointed recollections that surface from the skin and hums in the ears. This apparent mal- time to time out of the fog of infancy. Though the ice, however, is simply a misunderstanding of a event must have occurred long before I was allowed nature that is not accustomed to human intrusion. to explore the desert on my own, I clearly recall the Elam, too, finds the desert more alive than feeling of wonder at such a magical scene. Many he would have imagined possible. At first, the times in later years I searched for that place of scraggled mesquite, spindly ocotillo, and bristling memory but in vain. It is lost to me, as if it never chollo cactus seem to be haunted by the departed existed, but like all real loss, the associated emotion spirits of Indians and Conquistadors, farmers and remains. ranchers—all those who wore themselves out try- Though Elam’s cause for mourning (fictional ing to eke a life from that inhospitable wasteland. though it is) is more real than my half-remembered To Elam even the animals appear to lament those dreamscape, it, too, is tied up with a loss of place. struggles. Because his father believes the change will do him Elam awoke in the dark to mournful wail- good, Elam has to leave the mountains to which he ings. A yipping and howling filled the early air was born and bred. It is a difficult parting for him. with phantom harmonies that sounded as if May was ending, and the Little Colorado they were right outside his window. River was swollen with the melt when Elam He pulled a blanket over his head, but the hiked Mount Baldy for the last time. He stood muffled voices turned eerier still. His breathing at the summit and surveyed the places he knew felt thin and unnatural under the covers, so he by heart, pointing to each with the fishing pole climbed out of bed and hurried toward the glow he carried: Big Lake, Flag Hollow, Pine Top, the of light from the kitchen. There he found his Fair Grounds, the Trading Post, the Sloughs. father hunched over a cup of steaming coffee. He turned in a circle from north back to north, “What gets you out of bed so early?” Daddy reaching out with the pole as if to touch each asked. familiar site and fix it in his mind. “What’s that noise?” Once his circuit of farewells was complete, he hiked back down and hid the fishing pole “Coyotes. Must be chasing around down behind a ponderosa pine alongside the creek in the back canyon. Kind of spooky sounding, in a place where only he could find it. After a ain’t they?” moment’s hesitation, he looked full on at the Elam nodded and sat across from his father. rushing water. It had been a year since he had “I thought they might be ghosts,” he said. been able to face the stream like that, especially “They’re that, too. They’ll keen up a storm, here, at this spot. He knew he couldn’t blame but you'll never see ’em.” (26–27) the river, but still it was a reminder. He pulled a handful of leaves from a flow- These coyotes echo a loss that Elam feels but ering sumac and threw them spiraling into the has been unable to express. He yearns to answer stream. their cries, but he doesn’t quite know how. He On his way home, he stopped at Flag Hol- finds in his exploration of the desert, however, that low. Purple gladiolas and blue bearded irises there is always something just at the edge of dis- crowded the wrought-iron fence, pushing up covery that hints of healing, but when he turns to through a riot of new spring growth. He ran look, it is gone. his hand across the familiar headstone and One of my earliest memories, one that I find traced out the carving: Brett McClellan, born impossible to fix in time, is of a canyon somewhere January 13, 1949; died May 12, 1960.

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He lingered for another moment, then “Well, tomorrow then.” Daddy eased back meandered back home, arriving just in time to out the door, shutting it behind him. tell it goodbye, too. (7–8) Elam unclasped the photograph. Though Elam would prefer to remain in his “I don’t like it here at all,” he whispered to beloved home, there is no remedy to his father’s will. the picture. (16–17) His attachments to place cannot resist the author- Such were the styles of most fatherly encoun- ity of parenthood. ters in my life. Perhaps it is the desert that allows Elam’s father is a man of obdurate wisdom—a for a limited success with this kind of paternal tra- believer in solutions. He is a man who trusts that dition. There is no duality of purpose in the sear- action and change are the answers to Elam’s self- ing sun, no difficult questions of right or wrong in imposed solitude and grief. He believes that easy the gray expanse of sand and mesquite. Decisions acquaintance can make up for a lost friendship of of nature are marked by a single-minded scrab- the heart. He is a composite of all the fathers who, bling for existence. This enforced morality makes with their families, shared the long row of com- for a certain kind of freedom that is well suited pany houses in which we lived. These were men to childhood. Human nature, however, manages to who chose familial distance, with only occasional introduce more sophisticated concepts into this forays into corrective direction, as the prime psy- austere world. Because of this, I grew up in a town chology of child-rearing. Elam’s father is a master divided. Though the desert compelled people of all of this philosophy. races to band together to establish a living in this After dinner Elam sat on his bed in the place, no sooner were the homes built, than lines dusky half-light of his room, staring at the tat- were drawn. Mexicans lived on the north side of tered photograph—a school picture of a skinny, town in San Pedro, while the rest of us were free to towheaded boy, grinning so his eyes sparkled. settle anywhere we chose. The pressure to remain Elam ran a finger over the picture’s dog-eared separate came from every hand: friends, parents, corners. Except for Elam’s brown hair, Momma even the schools. Though institutional segregation had said they could have been twins. Elam had always wished they were. had already been abolished, Mexican students were He flipped the photo over and back, over constantly chided on their differences, particularly and back, turning it in his hands so that the in terms of language and pronunciation. After- face and the faded blue ink of the inscription school friendships between Mexicans and whites blurred in his eyes. He knew the inscription by were considered unconscionable. I grew up with heart: To my friend Elam, from your friend Brett. these prejudices lodged within me. A sudden knock on his door made him The attachments to the place, however, were clamp the picture tight between his palms. buried much deeper, which now allow me to look “Son?” back on those prohibited associations with regret. The door squeaked open and Daddy poked Through Elam, I have made a friend, Refúgio, who his head into the shadowed room. “Need some represents every dark-skinned boy I wished I had been light?” He flipped on the switch without wait- friends with, but wasn’t because of societal pressures. ing for an answer. Refúgio has come to be one of my best amigos. Elam squinted at the sudden brilliance. “What do the coyotes find to eat around Daddy stepped through the open door. here?” Elam asked. He and Refúgio sat in the “How are you liking it here?” he asked. shade of the cottonwood at the edge of Elam’s Elam shrugged. backyard. The morning had faded into noon, “You ought to get out and make some and the blazing sun stood high overhead. friends.” Refúgio pulled at a bull-headed thorn, yank- Elam shrugged again. “There was too much ing it out of the ground, root and all. “Every- to do today,” he said. thing,” he said. “Mostly rabbits, I guess. But

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my grandfather says they’ll eat whatever they his head. After a moment he continued. “You’ve can catch. Birds. Snakes. Lizards. But not horny gotta be smarter than that about choosing your toads.” friends.” “How come not horny toads?” Elam felt confused. “But . . . I thought—” “They squirt blood out of their eyes.” He could feel the pressure rising in his chest “Naw!” Elam dismissed the ridiculous again. He looked to his mother for help. notion with a shake of his head. “They don’t. She gave him a reassuring nod. “Hank,” How could they do that?” she said. “At least he’s met someone he likes. “They do.” Refúgio pulled up another thorn Isn’t that what we wanted?” plant. “And the coyotes don’t like it. It makes “He just needs to be careful who he makes them sick.” friends with, that’s all I’m saying.” “How do you know?” Elam shoved back from the table, gathered “My grandfather told me.” up his plate and cup, and carried them to the Elam still felt skeptical. “Does he know sink. Then he pushed through the front door, everything?” wondering what it would take to make his father happy. “He’s old. He knows a lot. He knows that the coyotes howl because they don't like the As he sat on the porch, he heard the door night to be empty. He knows how to find water open behind him. It closed with a rattle. in the desert and how to catch rattlesnakes “Son?” with his bare hands.” Refúgio sat up straighter. His mother sat on the step beside him. His eyes sparkled as he talked of his grand- “Tell me about your new friend,” she said. father. “He knows how to live where there is Elam stared at the orange sky that silhou- no living.” etted the houses on the far ridge. “I think he’s Elam leaned back on his elbows to get a a lot like Brett,” he finally offered, though he better view of Refúgio’s profile. “My grandpa couldn’t explain why. (61–62) was a cowboy,” he offered. “I was named after him.” Just as the desert has had a powerful influence Refúgio laughed. “Mine is part Indian.” on the writing of A Hundred Days from Home, so (75–76) have my personal relationships with friends and family. When my father moved us eight miles to a In Refúgio, Elam has accomplished his father’s new town, his instructions were “Be careful who wish and made a new friend, but as is often the case you make friends with.” There were no explana- with fathers such as his, Elam misunderstood the tions as to his meaning, but the words have stuck parameters of his father’s injunction. with me through the years. Because of that, in the “I found a friend today,” Elam said at the relationship between Elam and Refúgio, there dinner table. remains a touch of the segregation with which I “A friend? Really?” Daddy’s forehead was raised. For a reason Elam doesn’t discover until wrinkled up with a hopeful look. later, he is never invited to visit Refúgio’s home. Elam nodded. For now, however, their simple friendship is “That’s good,” his father continued. “That’s enough for him. To Elam, Refúgio represents the real good.” healing power for which he has been searching. “His name is Refúgio.” Refúgio is an embodiment of all the promises the “Refúgio? What kind of name is that?” desert has hinted at. He symbolizes the magic of “He’s Mexican.” life in the desert, and even with his father’s “What? A Mexican? I didn’t mean for you attempts to separate the two, Elam is loath to give to . . .” Daddy’s voice trailed off, and he shook up his newfound friend.

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Elam watched Refúgio disappear around a He moved closer, listening. The sound bend. Suddenly he panicked, afraid that Refú- seemed to come from the trailer itself. He crept gio would somehow slip away. He raced after to the near side and peeked around. At the him, keeping to the edges of the wash, scurry- front a veranda fashioned from saguaro ribs ing along, trying to keep Refúgio in sight, but and ocotillo spears shaded the entrance to the careful not to be seen himself. battered trailer. Trumpet vines with their orange- The wash widened, fanning out into a flat red blossoms twined through the rough con- dotted with creosote and scrubby mesquite. struction, covering the thorny supports with a Still Refúgio continued, and still Elam kept up ceiling and walls of green. his pursuit. At last Refúgio came to a dirt road— Small, opalescent shapes flitted through a rutted track that gouged its way through the the greenery, darting from flower to flower— rocks and sand, leaving scraggly plants growing tiny birds with wings that beat so fast they were up between the ruts. invisible. Elam stole onto the path himself. The sun Elam stepped into the veranda. A thrum- had descended toward the hills at his back, ming past his ear made him duck his head. stretching his shadow out before him. He Hundreds of miniature birds hung in the air, feared it would catch up to the other boy and bobbing on hidden currents, disappearing then give away his presence, but he didn't dare lag reappearing, as if they had temporarily blinked any farther behind. out and then back into existence. Elam stood Finally the road climbed a slight rise. Elam hypnotized by their flitting movements and the kept low and hurried upward, his breath com- droning hum. It was several moments before ing in gasps. He stopped at the top. the opening of the trailer door startled him The rutted path swung down across the from his reverie. hillside, leading to a set of cultivated fields. Refúgio stepped out and stopped in surprise. Watermelon vines sprawled over the nearer “Uh, hi,” Elam said, suddenly uncomfortable. field. Beyond that grew cotton. Past the fields Refúgio stared at him. “You followed me.” a row of tall, desert-bred cedar trees stood as a (110–12) break in the monotony. Through the trees Elam caught a glimpse of a wide riverbed and Elam’s very first excursion in the desert con- the glint of water between rocks. vinced him that the place is haunted by ghosts. In A house trailer, missing wheels and axle, reality he finds the desert itself is alive—rife with sat flat on the dusty ground just before the unexpected pleasures: the sapling of a ponderosa fields, its silver finish dulled with streaks of pine, growing where none should be; a spring, rust. Tattered curtains hung in its windows, bubbling up from the hard-baked earth; a rattle- and an absurd metal chimney pierced its roof. Tumbleweeds had piled up against its side snake that gives its cast-off skin to bring Elam and almost to the windows. Refúgio together. He finds a place of magic. But Refúgio disappeared around to the front of even more than that, when Elam’s world is rocked the trailer. by a second death, it is the desert that offers itself Elam hurried down the sloping road, skip- for healing. ping over rocks and shabby plants. He slowed, As Elam stepped once more into the canyon, however, as he approached the trailer. A hum- sibilant whispers murmured on all sides, rising ming sound filled the air. up with waves of morning heat. Dry air crack- Back home in the mountains, he and Brett led over his face. Refúgio had already disap- had once come across a wild beehive just gone peared beyond the curve of the slope, but still to swarm. The two had found delight in the Elam did not feel alone—the desert itself sur- sky turned dark with bees and the constant rounded him now, a living presence that pulled buzzing drone. The humming Elam heard now at him, more insistent than ever. He eased down- was similar, only deeper, richer. ward, and it was like descending into a dream.

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Shimmers of warmth flowed along the The exhilaration exhausted him. He sank wash, forming an indistinct river. Elam waded to the ground and was nearly swallowed by the through its current. He could feel it tugging at cushion of soft vegetation. Sunlight filtered his legs. He passed on through, drawn again up through the trees. He blinked his eyes closed the gully to the pine tree. The green had spread and lay motionless, basking in the comfort of along each branch, and now the tree stood full sifting breezes and dappled light. and vibrant against the gray backdrop. It was He reached high over his head to stretch a not possible. Or it was a dream. year’s worth of pain from his body. “Or magic,” Elam said aloud. “Ouch!” he cried He ran his fingers over the surface of the Something had pricked his arm. rock wall. Moisture began to trickle from above, He rolled to his stomach and hunted coating the wall with a crystal sheen. Yellow through the clustered plants behind him. Care- mosses and lichens sprouted under his touch. fully he pulled aside the ferns and creeping A rushing sound like a breeze among the vines and uncovered a helmet-shaped pin- aspens swirled about him. He spun around. cushion—a miniature cactus that bristled from Green shoots sprang up to carpet the floor of beneath the choking greenery. A small, white the basin. A second pine sapling poked its way blossom adorned its crown, struggling in a through the new growth. And then another, feeble attempt to spread its petals. unfurling its tiny branches to reach out for the Elam’s heart began to break all over again. warm sunlight. Through blurred eyes, he tried to focus on the Elam felt like laughing out loud. tiny cactus. He brushed his fingers over the fish- “It’s not dead,” he cried. “It’s all real!” hook thorns. It would suffocate if he didn’t do He clambered back down the gully, excited. something. He tugged at the other plants, The trickling water flowed after him, growing uprooting them, frantically pushing them back into a tumbling stream, filling the air with to make room for the cactus. Finally free, its chattering conversation. At his passing, wild- flower stretched upward toward the sun. flowers blossomed on the banks—snowdrops Elam blinked against the tears. He unwound and columbine, paintbrushes, wild straw- a creeper from the thorns. “You don’t have to berry, and bright yellow sunflowers. do this,” he said. “Not for me.” He pushed He breathed in the sweetness of the new himself to his feet. “Please, you don’t have to blossoms. He could feel the desert retreating do this.” from the burgeoning advance—giving way to The scene about him seemed to freeze the riot of impossible growth that followed expectantly, as if unsure of his words. The him down the hillside. Sumac and chokecherry; breeze died, the air became still. towering ponderosa pines thick with long- Elam rubbed the scratch on his arm. The fingered needles and stubby cones; thistles and tears streamed down his face. “I’ll be all right.” ferns; moss and lichens and mushrooms the The tallest trees wavered, as if seen through size of cracker boxes—all joined together to water. And then a sound, like a sigh of relief, obscure the raw scarcity of this place. whooshed through the air. Elam felt a sudden In an instant the last three months warmth on the back of his neck. The forest sloughed away, and Elam was home. Breezes began to evaporate in the blazing light, melting moved through the trees in natural rhythms, into tattered shreds of greenery. whispering, but with no will of their own. He He shielded his eyes. “But thank you,” he breathed in the smells of damp earth and pine- cried to whatever would hear. (137–41) scented air. He felt a power returning to him, a swelling within as he swept through the under- A Hundred Days from Home, a novel of rattle- growth, trampling a path through the alpine snakes, coyotes, and friendship is born of my own greenery. veneration for a place I left more than thirty years

106 Real World Influences on the Writing of Young Adult Fiction ago. Its words demonstrate its sources better than I ever could. In retrospect, the story’s influences include a belief that life stretches beyond our limited con- cepts of being, that real magic exists in the world, and, as Elam discovered, that what we call reality extends much further than our own imperfect vision. My writing will always be informed by pieces of this reality, shards of experience that are sig- nificant to no one but me. But from these pieces, stories form that are larger and more meaningful than any experience of my own ordinary life.

107 Defiling the Hands with a Holy Book: The Future of Book of Mormon Scholarship

Mark Thomas

ortunately for all of us, Friday the Thirteenth Book of Mormon scholarship will be adventurous Fcomes on a Wednesday this coming August. So will soon become apparent. But most of you will suppose that on the night before that numinous rather choose a life of predictability and grinding day, a knock comes at your door. You open the routine; near the end a long life, you will come to door to find an old man dressed in robes, with a see that your only romance has been what O. Henry beard and a pointed hat. Sensing hidden danger and described as “a pallid thing of a marriage or two, defilement, you close the door half way and glance a satin rosette kept in a safe deposit drawer, and a in the bushes for possible accomplices. But instead, life-long feud with a steam radiator.” you see in the stranger’s eye a look of scholarship, But a few of you will hear the wizard’s call among mixed with romance and unknown adventure. the Nephites. Your Nephite research mission, should “I am Raphael the Wizard,” he says. “I have come you choose to accept it, begins in Palestine in the to take you on your greatest adventure.” He turns, first century. walks down the path, and calls back to you, “Come According to the Talmud, a first-century woman, with me!” A cluster of possible fates races through apparently concerned with the obvious sensual your mind, should you choose to follow: perhaps nature of the Song of Solomon, approached a rabbi; robbery and a quick death at the hands of hidden she asked the rabbi if this book was scripture. The assailants hiding in your yard, or a trek based on rabbi replied by saying that the Song of Solomon is the discovery of a faded map of the buried library scripture because it defiles the hands. Certain of ancient Alexandria, or finding the missing and ancient rabbis taught that “all sacred writings defile intimate portrait of your heart’s true love, or best of the hands.”1 all, the sight of the breath of God in the cool air This rabbinic response contains the best defini- coming from just around that corner. tion of written scripture that I know—scripture is Do you follow this professed wizard on his a book that defiles the hands with sacred power. unknown adventure? No, you do not! So you But it is a rather startling notion—that something timidly close the door, pick up the phone and call holy should contaminate or defile. But that is where the police. But by then, Raphael has vanished. No, our Book of Mormon adventure begins—by heft- you do not follow this or any other wizard! . . . ing the text. Doctrine and Covenants 68 gives us a unless . . . unless you are that rare breed of true parallel definition of oral scripture—whatever one scholar, ready to meet and greet an unknown fate. speaks when moved by the Holy Ghost is scripture. I have come here today on the improbable chance So the essential experience associated with scrip- that in this audience I may find someone with ture is holiness. The concept of scripture assumes a heart for high adventure ready to travel on the an ontological dualism between holy and profane, path of future Book of Mormon scholarship. Why between ritually clean and ritually unclean, between

109 AML Annual 2004 good and evil. But the holy is ambiguous. The holy orality is linked with the power of God in the Book must be handled cautiously, because it can defile of Mormon. For the Book of Mormon, the written and kill, as the story of Uzzah steadying the ark word of God is a secondary, less powerful experi- reminds us. The God of life and healing is the God ence. For example, listen to Helaman 12 as the of death and wounding when stepping out of the narrator dramatically describes the evil inclinations holy into the profane.2 of the natural man in what I call “The Great Noth- Today I will predict how future scholarship on ingness Speech”: the Book of Mormon will demonstrate three ways 1 O how foolish! by which the Book of Mormon defiles the hands. 2 and how vain! These three areas of future research are the Book of 3 and how evil! Mormon as oral tradition, Nephite religious sym- 4 and devilish! bolism, and what we might call the spiritual and 5 and how quick to do iniquity scholarly crossroads. 6 and how s-l-o-w to do good 7 are the children of men. 1. Holiness and 8a Yea, how quick to hearken unto the words the Book of Mormon Oral Tradition of the evil one 8b and to set their hearts upon the vain And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things of the world! things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speak- 9 Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride ing: for when a man speaketh by the power of 10a Yea how quick to boast, the Holy Ghost, the power of the Holy Ghost 10b and do all manner of that which is iniquity carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of 11a And how s-l-o-w are they to remember men. (2 Ne. 33:1)3 the Lord their God And I said unto [the Lord], Lord, the Gen- 11b and to give ear unto his counsels tiles will mock at these things, because of our 12 Yea, how s-l-o-w to walk in wisdom’s paths! . . . weakness in writing: for Lord, thou hast made us mighty in word by faith, whereunto thou [And here comes the paradoxical conclusion:] hast not made us mighty in writing: . . . Thou 13 O how Great is the Nothingness of the hast also made our words powerful and great, children of men even that we cannot write them; wherefore, 14 Yea, even they are less than the dust of when we write, we behold our weakness, and the earth. (Hel. 12:4–5, 7, emphasis and line stumble because of the placing of our words; organization added) and I fear lest the Gentiles shall mock at our words . . . (Ether 12:23, 25, emphasis added) The emotional intensity and contrasts of this section are best reflected in the evanescent music of Here Nephi and Moroni indicate that the Book the voice playing to the ear. The eye and the writ- of Mormon is based on a strong oral tradition and ten page cannot capture them. Moroni was right: a frail written tradition. Nephi states that, unlike “Thou hast made our words powerful and great, the written word of God, the oral word is carried even that we cannot write them.” What is lost in by the Holy Ghost to the listener, giving inspired turning oral words to writing is more than the ear sermons a special spiritual power of holiness.4 This and the voice. Orality digs deep into a different belief in the power of the vocal word is typical of part of the brain than does writing and therefore oral traditions; according to Walter J. Ong, “oral organizes thought and literature in fundamentally people commonly, and probably universally, con- different ways. We who are primarily literate in sider words to have great power.”5 Since both the our expression and reading do not appreciate the holy and oral communication are experiential, structure, organizing principles, or psychic depths

110 Defiling the Hands with a Holy Book: The Future of Book of Mormon Scholarship of oral texts. We read them analytically, as if they the holy. Symbols thereby liberate the historically were sloppy written texts. trapped text. Bruce Jorgensen has already demon- Oral texts require a different mentality in the strated that in his classic work on Lehi’s dream. But both the speaker and the audience. For example, we have done very little since his article first speakers in oral traditions generally do not memo- appeared, years ago. The road ahead will see many rize texts verbatim. They rather tend to utilize tra- symbolic inns before we reach our home. ditional stock phrases and formulas that are stitched There are several types of symbols in the Book together as a mosaic. Speakers in oral traditions of Mormon. The first is a two-tiered narrative sym- organize thought around the memorable: mnemonics bolism. After hearing Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s devices, balanced patterns (such as chiasmus), repe- visions, Laman and Lemuel ask Nephi if that tition, antithesis, alliteration, assonance, standard dream is literal history or symbolism. Nephi tells thematic settings, inherited proverbs, stock charac- them that it is both literal and symbolic. In other ters, formulaic plots, the repetition of three in nar- words, Lehi’s dream was understood by the book ratives (all common in the Book of Mormon), and itself as literal history in allegorical form and redundant returns. These mneumonic devices, at simultaneously a symbolic, spiritual map featuring their best, also provide artful presentation.6 the love of God, spiritual blindness, and so forth. In speaking Helaman 12 out loud, we add a This duel level of interpretation is confirmed by dimension not evident in the written text. The the interpreting angel that appears to Nephi.7 The Book of Mormon is a Malcom X, not a Dosto- Book of Mormon also indicates that it understands evsky. It is a quick, violent, and vulnerable sketch some of its narratives and the prophecies of Isaiah in pencil, rather than a carefully crafted oil. on both a literal and a symbolic level. This two- The wind blows where it will in the emotion of tiered view of narrative tells us that in this secular the spoken work and is gone forever. But a faint world, every factual stone is an altar and every gar- whisper of a holy voice remains in the written den path leads to a tree of life. word, enough of an echo to defile the hands when A second feature of Book of Mormon symbol- we heft the text. Should you choose to follow ism and a third way in which it defiles the hands is Raphael, you are likely to be given a new map in its use of existential symbols. These existential locating hidden oral Nephite treasures. Following symbols are representations of the limits of human this map, you are likely to dig up a new Nephite existence. In other words, the Book of Mormon logic and rhetoric of defilement. portrays the universal human situation through imagery. Death is a monster, powerlessness is cap- 2. Holiness and tivity and chains, guilt is the stain of blood on a Book of Mormon Symbolism garment, meaninglessness and ignorance are a state of blindness or sleep. The Nephite gospel does not We can also sense a defiling of the hands in the come as pure stone tablets from heaven—it comes symbolism of the Book of Mormon, the second as the answer to the limits of human existence. inn on the adventure of future Book of Mormon Let us look at examples of these existential scholars. The Book of Mormon itself, as revelation, symbols in Alma 5, one of the most clever rhetor- is symbolic. ical speeches in the Book of Mormon. Here we All revelation is symbolic; it points beyond find the human condition of blindness and sleep itself to something else—to some aspect of the holy. The adequacy of revelation can therefore be transformed into sight through spiritual rebirth: judged only as true or false on symbolic terms, not a-Behold, he changed their hearts on historical or empirical terms. And the adequacy a-Yea, he awakened them out of a deep of religious symbolism can be judged only by its sleep ability to express the human condition in light of a-And they awoke unto God

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a-Behold, they were in the midst of 3. The Crossroads of Holiness darkness and Scholarship a-Nevertheless, their souls were illumi- nated by the light of the everlasting word. The imagery utilized by Isaiah 2 of the gather- (Alma 5:7) ing in the top of the mountains is the imagery of a crossroads. At this crossroads for all nations, swords These are traditional phrases that express the will be beaten into plowshares and spears into prun- innate human condition as blindness, and the spir- ing hooks, and we will no longer need to learn the itual birth as a transition from blindness to sight. symbolism of war anymore. In the next few verses, another set of existential In sight of this approaching crossroads, a group symbols combine the imagery of captivity and free- of scholars at Brigham Young University is organiz- dom in this same spiritual transformation. It includes ing a Book of Mormon Round Table—a crossroads such phrases as “breaking the bands of death,” “loos- of scholars from a variety of faiths and disciplines ing the chains of hell,” and “singing redeeming to join in an interpretive analysis of the Book of love.” Alma 5 continues the symbolism by por- Mormon. We will see some first-rate scholars at traying human guilt as a stain of blood and filthi- this event. The organizers include Steven Walker ness on the garment, the hands, and the heart. from the BYU English Department and Kent The symbolism in Alma 5 portrays the stain of Brown the Director of Ancient Studies at BYU. We blood cleansed by washing in more blood, the have invited such diverse thinkers as Alan Tull (an transition from blindness to sight, and the release Episcopal priest with theological skills), Robert from chains. These symbols are not only existen- Price (a New Testament scholar and the editor of tial, but psychological depth symbols as well—they the Journal of Higher Criticism), and Wayne Booth evoke the psychological depths of the sources of of the University of Chicago—to participate. And evil as contamination, blindness, and captivity. A you are all invited. This is the grand adventure. holy book taps into these depth symbols, which act This Round Table will meet annually to discuss as much as rituals as they do symbols. These sym- papers on a particular genre in the Book of Mormon. bols are rituals because they are bearers of the real- The first meeting may be as early as 12 August ities that they represent. They are both experiential 2003. We will come in a spirit of cooperation to and transformational. Salvation is such a dramatic wrestle with this text. After five years, these gather- event. So when I read a dramatic Nephite narrative ings will become the basis for an introductory book with an implied symbolic meaning of deliverance, on the Book of Mormon, entitled “The Critical I am participating in the processes of my own Introduction to the Book of Mormon.” We hope deliverance simply by reading. And when I read that this book serves as the premier and standard the existential imagery, I am personally participat- introductory text for both Mormons and non- ing in the conquest of death, guilt, powerlessness, Mormons. This book will briefly summarize the and meaninglessness by evoking the defilement of evidence for and against the historicity of the Book my own soul. Hence, we experience scripture as a of Mormon and then spend the remainder of the defilement of the hands. book interpreting the Book of Mormon itself. We These symbols act as primitive psychic voices intend to make this an exciting, even-handed intro- in our heads whispering to us what we already duction that could be used in a BYU Book of Mor- sense—that we, all of us, are incomplete and con- mon class or at a Duke literature class. This is the taminated. Neither these symbols nor the symbolic crossroads that we wish to replace the battlements. phraseology of the Book of Mormon existential Most current research on the Book of Mormon images is unique. But as is typical with oral texts, it is not about the Book of Mormon at all. It’s about weaves traditional existential symbols, biblical phrases,8 religious authority. We pretty much ignore the and traditional proverbs9 into new mosaic patterns. Book of Mormon itself. But in this Round Table,

112 Defiling the Hands with a Holy Book: The Future of Book of Mormon Scholarship the current ad hominen attacks between Mormons 6. An example of artfulness can be found in the and non-Mormons will change to serious and hon- brass plates story, which utilizes the typical oral use of est examination of the text. Come, let us reason the repetition of three as narrative structure. The brass together at the crossroads of open dialogue. This is plate story is filled with events that occur in threes. In the crossroads that will produce critical and higher this story, the spirit speaks three times to Nephi, fol- quality research. By our entering into honest and lowed by three responses from Nephi. Sarai asks three times for the return of her sons. The sons return open dialogue, the Mormon arguments will become three times to Jerusalem. stronger because we will have a chance to try them The dramatic irony in the story occurs in the three in the marketplace of ideas. visits of Nephi to Laban to get the brass plates. This and In 2 Nephi 29, we read of the gathering of the preceding stories echo the biblical Exodus: they are Israel and with that gathering will come the gath- on a journey to the promised land with a prophetic ering of holy books from all nations. Scripture, then, leader and murmuring followers. After two failed is the breath of God blowing at the crossroads in attempts at getting the plates from Laban, Nephi com- the presence of gathered texts. With the coming pares their third attempt to Moses defeating the army of of Mormonism, the house of God’s lodging is the Egyptians at the Red Sea (1 Ne. 3). The first two expanded, and by expanding the holy, it no longer visits increase the dramatic confrontation. So the read- defiles but ritually cleanses and makes holy—Asians, ers’ expectations are set in the expected third visit to see Islanders, Africans, Notre Dame, Duke, BYU, an escalation of power from God—akin to killing the Stanford—people from all lands will bear books first born or death of the Egyptians in the Red Sea—to follow the explicit Exodus pattern. But the climax in that sanctify our hands. the third and final visit contains a surprise: rather than Excuse me, I forgot to introduce myself. My with an escalation of power, Laban is defeated with name is Raphael the Wizard. I have come to invite nothing. you to our greatest adventure. Come with me! Unlike in the previous visits to Laban, Nephi not only does not bring added powers or gifts to complete the escalation of power, he goes into the city with no NOTES plans at all. Nephi enters the city without a request, 1. Jacob Milgrim, The Anchor Bible; Leviticus 1–16 with no gifts, with no defense, with no weapons, even (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 1000–4; John P. Meier, with no idea of what he will do. At the climax of power, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 3 he ironically, unexpectedly defeats Laban with nothing, (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 106–8. thus emphasizing the theme of weak overcoming the 2. In Leviticus 10, God tells Aaron to “put differ- strong through faith rather than power. (More in line ence between holy and unholy, and between unclean with Jael, David, and Judith in the Bible, than with the and clean” (Lev. 10:10). The way a society separates Exodus.) clean from unclean, holy from profane is a reflection of Nephi finds the drunken Laban, passed out on the its value system. Weeds are flowers in the wrong place. ground. God commands him to kill Laban, with Laban’s Dirtiness is soil in the wrong place. Pornography is sex own sword. Nothing conquers the mighty Laban. The in the wrong place. Canonization is one way of setting irony is double, because it is Laban’s own sword that the society’s boundary between the holy and the profane. kills him; the wicked are killed by their own powerful 3. Unless otherwise noted, versification of the Book weapons. This surprise in the story of three adds empha- of Mormon in this paper is from the current Utah edi- sis to the point that God is the deliverer—God can con- tion, and the text is from the 1830 first edition. quer the strongest foe with nothingness and turn power 4. Sermons throughout history maintain a tradi- against itself. So here the repletion of three brings the tion that something is lost when it is written down. See point home with the unexpected dramatic irony mak- Bruce Rosenberg, The Art of the American Folk Preacher ing the theological point. For other examples of repeti- (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). tion of three as an organizing principle, see Mark Thomas, 5. Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy (New York: Digging in Cumorah: Reclaiming Book of Mormon Nar- Routledge, 1982), 32. ratives (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999).

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7. See 1 Nephi 15:31–32 for Nephi’s response to There is nothing that is good save it comes his brothers. For an exegesis of this passage and the two- from the Lord tiered understanding of narratives in the Book of Mor- And that which is evil cometh of the devil. mon, see Thomas, Digging in Cumorah, 7–9, 99–118. (Omni 1:25) 8. A few samples of biblical phrases used in Alma 5: Whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good The Son of the Only Begotten of the Father, is of me [the Lord] full of grace and mercy and truth. (Alma 5:48// For good cometh of none save it be of me. John 1:14–18) (Ether 4:12) The Son of Man cometh in his glory. (Alma A bitter fountain cannot bring forth good 5:50//Matt. 25:31) water Behold the ax is laid at the root of the tree Neither can a bitter fountain bring forth good (Alma 5:52//Matt. 3:10) water . . . All things which are good cometh of God For the name of the righteous will be written in And that which is evil cometh of the devil. the book of life and unto them will I grant an (Moro. 7:11–12) inheritance at my right hand.(Alma 5:58//Rev. 13:8, Matt. 25:33) All things which are good cometh of Christ Otherwise men are fallen, 9. An example of one of the proverbs used in the And there could no good thing come unto Book of Mormon of differing occasions which suggests them. (Moro. 7:24) a previous verbal and theological tradition that Alma is Also see 3 Ne. 14:15–20//Matt. 7:15–20. drawing upon: Whatsoever is good cometh of God And whatsoever is evil cometh of the devil. (Alma 5:40)

114 Cities of Refuge

Harlow S. Clark

We must always be aware of the possibilities of believes people who work all day in mundane jobs radically different responses from the ones we like auto mechanics, morticians, financiers, or school have experienced, and not judge either the teachers have the ability to lay their hands on other intelligence or the morals of those who experi- people and call upon unseen healing power. ence those different responses, but simply I told my brother the librarian about Owens’ accept them as facts. work a couple years back. In December I went to —Jonathan Langford, AML-List, 24 Sep- his library and looked up Owens’ name, which led tember 1999 Re: Repudiating the darkness. . . . me to Paula Gunn Allen’s anthology, The Song of man whose child my wife watches told us the Turtle: American Indian Literature, 1974–1994. A one day there would be a story about his tiny What do these two stories have to do with my hometown on TV that night, ABC’s Nightline. A title? The first story’s connection is apparent if you woman in his hometown had been convicted of think of the six cities Moses set up, three on either murder because her boyfriend killed her daughter side of the River Jordan, where an unintentional while the woman was asleep. Tabitha Pollock was manslayer could flee the vengeance of the slain per- prosecuted under the theory that parents have the son’s relatives. responsibility for their children’s safety, and she Tabitha Pollock and hundreds of others like should have known. She eventually heard about her should have had refuge from the law’s ven- the Center for Wrongful Conviction and enlisted geance. Listening to the Nightline story, hearing their help. The conviction was overturned, ruled the prosecutor’s justification for prosecuting Pol- unconstitutional on the grounds that a prosecutor lock, reinforces my sense that as a culture we rely can’t hold someone accountable for a crime she too heavily on punishment. I think the reliance on didn’t commit, even if the prosecutor thinks the punishment is true not only in how we approach person should have known.1 transgressions of the law but also in how we A less dramatic story. Since reading Louis approach art as well. In September 2002 AML-List Owens’ The Sharpest Sight, which includes a His- was discussing what to teach students about the panic ghost who keeps popping into his grandson’s creative arts and Eric Samuelsen made a list which patrol car for a visit and is working to help a mur- included, “Teach students that they are children of der victim through her grief at having been mur- a culture that’s frankly pretty hostile to art and that dered, and a shaman who is trying to save his will hold them back if they let it.” grand-nephew from the spiritual destruction of All the responses assumed Eric was referring to war in Vietnam that claimed his brother, I have felt LDS culture, so I sent a post asking about that: that Native American writing can act as a model What fascinates me is that all the discussion for LDS writers wanting to explore a culture that of Eric’s list assumes that the word ‘culture’

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refers to LDS culture. I thought it referred to the case of my discipline.) But deciding exactly American culture. I can think of a lot of handi- how such an impact happens, or speculating caps American culture imposes on a lot of regarding the potential moral impact of any people, including a polarizing political rhetoric particular work is simply impossible. We don’t that frames public and political debate in know enough. simplistic divisive terms that don’t reflect the Commenting further on literature’s impact, and on diversity of our students’ lives, but may well trying to predict the impact, Eric says, affect the conditions under which they live. I especially think that phrase “a culture that’s All literature is written to have a POSITIVE frankly pretty hostile to art” describes Ameri- moral impact on an audience. All of it; that’s can culture. Think about this: Suppose there my argument. I don’t think anyone writes with was a huge defense contractor, Northcrock the intention that his/her readers will, as a result, Grubmoney, for example, that was involved in behave immorally (as the author defines moral- ity). Which is why making any sort of negative a huge overcharging scandal. Would anyone in moral judgment about the work of art itself Congress be making speeches about how we automatically involves an inappropriate moral ought to slash the budget for the National judgment about its creator. That’s the dilemma Endowment for Arms because it was funding I face here, and I can’t see my way out of it. immoral and corrupt companies? Let me deepen the dilemma a little. A potent The day after this posted I got a one word reply recurring theme in literary criticism since Plato, from Eric, “Bingo.” and maybe before, is the danger inherent in art. Plato tells us Socrates worried about the effects of “A culture that’s frankly pretty hostile to art” may art on children and those with weak minds. That suggest a punitive attitude toward artists, but I sus- concern recurs throughout literary history partly pect artists also rely too much on punishment, because you can’t prove that a work of art won’t caustic reviews, or invective against the poor taste damage someone, and if your relationship with a of the general public, or on dismissing genres like work of art is to feel an overwhelming power, or science fiction, fantasy, romance, or thriller. Writ- a power whelming you, it’s reasonable to assume ers in all these genres post to AML-List and we that other people might feel the same thing and have had vigorous discussions about genre as a not be able to handle it. marketing tool, or a concept of quality, or a matter In his essay “On the Teaching of Modern Lit- of readers’ tastes, or a convenience for classifying erature” Lionel Trilling expresses this concern as it works, but irrelevant to questions of whether a work occurs to a teacher devoted to modern literature is worth reading. and its enormous power, which he compared to a Scott Parkin has been an insistent defender of howitzer, but wary of aiming a howitzer at his stu- people’s right to tell their stories. “Not all gifts are dents. Some people deal with the threat of censor- given to all, and not everyone comes to under- ship implicit in imaging art as an act of violence by standing, peace, or acceptance by the same denying the power thereof—but that’s unsatisfying method. There are more true stories to be told, by to people who know literary power. more methods and metaphors than we’re seeing.” Trilling is not suggesting the violence of art is Eric Samuelsen has been similarly insistent on bad—he sees the howitzer as aimed at bringing the inherent goodness of all art. On 24 September down a corrupt society—and though he doesn’t 1999 in a thread about the moral effects of art mention Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin Eric wrote: was written in the modern period, and Lincoln’s I believe absolutely that literature does greeting to her, “So this is the little lady who have and can have a moral and ethical impact started the Civil War,”certainly suggests the power on those who read it (or see it performed, in of art to oppose or destroy corrupt culture.

116 Cities of Refuge

I suggested in one paper that the power Trilling how can you resist it? But for all its power art is not felt in modern literature comes from the Holy a howitzer. I love the words I remember (or mis- Ghost and is part of Daniel’s stone rolling through- remember) hearing from N. Scott Momaday at out the world destroying all kingdoms. However, BYU maybe twenty years ago, “And as often as this the image of art as violence has consequences; it story was told it was always only one telling from alienates artists from their culture, and if art is part extinction.” Art may have a profound effect on us, of a giant stone rolling throughout the world, how but only if we allow it to affect us, only if we keep do you know you won’t be crushed? telling the story. Because art is created for an audi- I want to suggest a different image. The city of ence, for someone else, if we refuse to tell ourselves refuge as an image implies that indeed the art or the story, that art is extinct for us. Thus the com- artist has caused harm but allows us to create a munal nature of art provides us a way to escape the mental space where art and artist can flee our power, to avoid being overwhelmed. wrath. But why should we allow an offending artist And this is what my second story, about find- to flee? Now let me pause here. Having written ing Paula Gunn Allen’s anthology The Song of the that, I could hear Jen Wahlquist’s oft-repeated Turtle, has to do with the image of cities of refuge. instruction to her students not to end a paper with In introducing each story Allen traces two main a rhetorical question. It’s good advice because some tropes, liminality, or border crossing, or crossing smart aleck, often with the initials HSC, will back and forth between cultures or worlds or spiri- answer the question in a way that defies the rheto- tual states, and transformation. ric implicit in the question. I cross a lot of borders, into and out of the So I often find myself writing, “This is not a city of refuge, and have sought to transform our rhetorical question.” Or perhaps I should say that image of art from violence to refuge, so I much the assumption behind my wanting to answer the appreciate Paris Anderson’s story “Tough-Luck: question is that we ought to treat works of art Sitting Bull’s Friend,” a fine piece of refuge and the same way we (should) treat each other. We pro- transformation.2 He manages to capture Sitting vide mental refuges for each other very often. Espe- Bull’s stature as a holy man and the tragedy of his cially in marriage. I’ve said and done about every murder without telling it in a way that might over- stupid thing I could (short of covenant breaking), whelm the children he’s writing for. but Donna still thinks I’m good (or treats me as He does this partly by choosing a naive point though I were), So apparently she has carved out of view character, Tough-Luck, Sitting Bull’s horse some mental space where she can send all my idio- in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. cies without exiling me. I’ll come back to this idea of creating a mental Sometimes sad folks came to the show lugging space to which we can send offending works of art mire in their hearts and shadows in their eyes. until the high priest who presides over the city of Tough-Luck liked to make tricks for them, refuge dies, but I want to also suggest that art itself because after the tricks, after the sawdust and can be a refuge. The general tenor of much of Scott gun smoke, after the thunder of cannons, blood- Parkin’s AML-List comment could be paraphrased curdling shrieks and war paint, folks went home with rainbows in their hearts and sparkles in as, “If you don’t find refuge in a story or poem or their eyes. Tough-Luck saw this plainly, for the painting or song, if it offends you or doesn’t touch eyes of four-legged people are not like the eyes you at all it may not be your city of refuge. But of two-legged people. (7) there are people inside the walls who found refuge in that city, perhaps could find it only there.” This image of the sight of four-legged eyes carries And yet another aspect of refuge. Trilling’s through the story, along with another image: metaphor suggests that art is outside our power to “He’s smart, too. Watch.” Buffalo Bill fired resist. You can hide from a howitzer, maybe, but his gun into the air.

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Tough-Luck began to prance around the because it begins the sentence. Good has good cap- corral. He stood on his hind legs and danced. ital anyplace). Good has virtue, vertu, the word He sat on his rump and waved one hoof in the Chaucer used to describe life force, ability to bring air, he bowed low then trotted back to the two forth, strength, power. Evil has that power only by men. (10) attaching itself to something good, so of course Later, knowing of his impending death and his some people use good things for evil. betrayal by his people, Sitting Bull asks Tough-Luck We don’t hold the Book of Mormon account- to perform for him, fires his gun, and Tough- able because the Lafferty brothers used it to justify Luck performs his trick. When the tribal police murdering their sister in law and niece. When we come to arrest Sitting Bull and they shoot him, talk about scripture we recognize there is not a Tough-Luck hears the signal and performs his trick symmetrical relationship between a work of art— again. (Anderson says in a historical note that the and scripture is very much art—and its effects. It’s not like a teeter-totter set to the middle rung, horse’s action was well documented.) where the evil balances out the good. We recognize This could be an overwhelmingly tragic moment. that scripture is meant to testify of the Savior and Sitting Bull receives two or three warnings that he’s bring people to Him, and we give more weight to going to be killed, and when an author structures a that effect than to the evil uses people make of story that way it’s got to end with either rescue scripture for their own ends. Indeed we could give or death—the warning can’t be bogus. If it ends in evil the greatest leverage on the teeter-totter and death the story is tragic. But Anderson’s choice of good would still have greater weight. narrator allows this story to offer a refuge from the To recap, art can be a city of refuge both for tragedy: artist and viewer, partaker, and sharer; art can pro- “Ho, ho, ho! Thank you, Tough Luck,” he vide us a refuge from itself, and all art provides heard the wind whisper. “You are my friend.” refuge for someone because all art has some vertu if A rainbow drifted toward the sky. only from the act of creating. All making defeats Tough-Luck saw and heard this plainly, for the Unmaker. the eyes and ears of four-legged people are not As the allusion to Orson Scott Card’s Alvin like those of two-legged people. (32) Maker series suggests, I was going to extend this To return to the question I asked earlier, “Why paper to show more examples of art as refuge in would we want to create a mental city of refuge for Mormon literature, but I got an e-mail in Decem- offending artists?” Ivan Wolfe, writing on AML- ber 2002 that offended me and by the time I fin- List 7 March 2000, countered the general sense ished with it I realized my changing reactions of posts by Scott Bronson, Eric Samuelsen, and illustrated my thesis perfectly. D. Michael Martindale that art is an inherently I get a lot of e-mail from a fellow my wife grew righteous endeavor with this comment: up with, a good friend of her brother’s. It’s mostly Internet fluff, much of it with a distinctly Evangel- See—my problem with D. Michael Martindale’s ical Christian flavor, which surprises me a bit argument is that it is used to only allow art to because Evangelicals don’t often consider LDS to do good. Artists are suddenly only allowed be fellow travelers, though I suspect the two groups to take credit, but not blame. Unfortunately, have more in common than they like to think. either artists should take the credit AND the This story came under the title “If you were blame, or disavow all connection with their art and take neither. in God’s shoes.” I’ll summarize the first part with a note that it involves a mystery flu sweeping But surely good and evil are not symmetrical. the world, and despite European countries and the Evil is neither as powerful, rational, clear-headed U.S. sealing their borders it comes to the borders, or virtuous as Good (evil only gets a capital letter east and west and starts sweeping in toward the

118 Cities of Refuge midwest. A search ensues for someone with untainted you that didn’t just have to be. Do you understand blood from which a vaccine can be made. People that?” are asked to go to hospitals to be tested. And when that old doctor comes back in and Suddenly a young man comes running out of says, “I’m sorry, we’ve—got to get started. People the hospital screaming. He’s yelling a name and all over the world are dying.” waving a clipboard. Can you leave? Can you walk out while he is What? He yells it again! And your son tugs on saying, “Dad? Mom? Dad? Why, why have you for- your jacket and says, “Daddy, that’s me.” Before saken me?” you know it, they have grabbed your boy. Wait a At first this story offended me deeply, and for minute. Hold on! the same reason the film The Green Mile did. I rec- And they say, “It’s okay, his blood is clean. His ognize that both are supposed to be parables, but blood is pure. We want to make sure he doesn’t for a parable to be effective it must first be a believ- have the disease. We think he has got the right type.” able story.3 Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors Perhaps the jailers’ total lack of attempt to help and nurses, crying and hugging one another— Coffey is supposed to mirror the Apostles’ deser- some are even laughing. It’s the first time you have tion of Jesus in Gethsemane, but they weren’t in seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor any position of power over him. It seems to me walks up to you and says, “Thank you, sir. Your that Stephen King just couldn’t resist the irony of son’s blood type is perfect. It’s clean, it is pure, and the Ancient Mariner ending, of JC giving the nar- we can make the vaccine.” As the word begins to rator the gift of semi-eternal life as a punishment spread all across that parking lot full of folks, for his cowardice. But the christology of the ending people are screaming and praying and laughing is so blatant it feels forced, or like it’s trying to and crying. force me to think a certain way about the Atone- But then the gray-haired doctor pulls you and ment. The science is completely wrong. You don’t your wife aside and says, “May we see you for make a vaccine out of untainted blood. You make moment? We didn’t realize that the donor would it out of a weakened or dead form of the virus. And be a minor and we need . . . we need you to sign a even if you could make vaccine out of blood, does consent form.” the author really expect me to believe that one per- You begin to sign and then you see that the son’s blood could create enough vaccine for the number of pints of blood to be taken is empty. “H- whole world? how many pints?” Well, yes, he or she does. It’s obvious, so bla- And that is when the old doctor’s smile fades tant you don’t have to reflect on it. The story has and he says, “We had no idea it would be a little no layers like the parables of Jesus, nothing to dis- child. We weren’t prepared. We need it all.” “But— cover when you’re thinking about it later. Because but . . . You don’t understand.” “We are talking the story exists only on the symbolic level, all details about the world here. Please sign. We need it all!” are chosen to support the symbolic level. There’s “But can’t you give him a transfusion?” “If we had no need to say, “Master, declare unto us this parable,” clean blood we would. Can you sign? Would you because it’s already clarified. You can’t escape the sign?” In numb silence, you do. meaning, there’s no refuge from it, as Jesus said Then they say, “Would you like to have a there was from his parables, “that hearing they moment with him before we begin?” might not hear and seeing they might not see.”4 Can you walk back? Can you walk back to that And I want that refuge, the freedom to ponder room where he sits on a table saying, “Daddy? and reflect and see meanings arise out of the story, Mommy? What’s going on?” Can you take his without being forced upon me. hands and say, “Son, your mommy and I love you, And it offended me for the same reason as the and we would never ever let anything happen to story about the bridge keeper whose son comes

119 AML Annual 2004 running across the tracks just before the train comes crime the idea of draining all the blood out of a in the opposite direction. Both are inviting us to living person, simply can’t see it as something feel the emotions God might feel at sacrificing a doctor would willingly do. his son, but both stories ignore Jesus’ “Here am I Or perhaps I’m just trying to escape an uncom- send me.” In both the son’s death is involuntary.5 fortable story by enumerating the points where the But the offense was even more visceral, analogy breaks down. Let’s see, if the son represents reminding me immediately of a poem I have Jesus and the father represents God, who does the wanted to write for more than thirty years, since doctor represent? Surely the people who find reading a magazine article perhaps in August 1971 refuge in this story would insist the question is per- as we traveled through Europe after my father’s verse: By definition there can be nothing greater stint as a Fulbright professor at the University of than God. But for me, seeking refuge from the Oulu, Finland. story, the idea is intriguing. I can imagine a man In searching Time and Newsweek for that year I and woman being called and anointed as god and did not find the story but found two more to add goddess and learning, or re-learning that this exal- to it. tation requires the most exquisite suffering. For their son. I begin imagining the scene with The armies of Tikka Khan do not trifle when unbelievers declare a desh in East Pakistan. the words, The soldier parting this man’s sarong with his “One thing more . . . ,” he said, letting his barrel may shoot words hang in the air. if he is uncircumcised. And as I think about this scene I realize I’ve Hide when the Khan’s soldiers come. transformed this story I find no refuge in. It has Noticing movement in this woman’s bed they fire yielded me a poem, suggested a story, given me a again and again. Two children die—a third wounded. gift. So I’ve taken refuge from the story, created a refuge for it, and received a gift from it.6 When the army trucks roll into a village they are So there it is, even this poorly wrought work of after blood. art can bless me despite the coercive packaging,7 And there is no hiding. can give me refuge if I know how to find refuge. The commander rounds up young men to donate And thinking about refuge I remember the blood for wounded soldiers, straps them down. brilliant and witty young woman I dated in high One pint? Two? school, well read and eloquent, oldest of seven chil- He waves aside the niceties. dren, who told me that all the children in her fam- No need to measure. ily had been wild beasts until they learned how to When the bag is full just attach another. read. The soldiers leave And one last thing. I opened my e-mail while when the blood stops flowing. preparing this paper and read an AML-List note from Justin Halverson replying to Richard Dutcher, I have not titled this yet. “The Vampire Speaks who believes the essence of the gospel can be cap- of Blood Atonement,” perhaps. But I would actu- tured in a work of art. Justin wonders what it ally have to enter into the commander’s mind, means to say a particular essence might inhere in a speak in his voice, to justify the title. I would rather work of art separate from the audience that shares enter the minds of the boys strapped onto the or challenges the artist’s vision. At the end of this tables. post, struggling to define the difference between That image of blood filling bag after bag, emp- capturing the essence of the gospel and only desir- tying body after body is so intense, so horrifying, ing to capture it, he says, “Here’s a thought (but that I simply can’t accept as anything but a war not thought through): wouldn’t a work of art that

120 Cities of Refuge possessed such an essence in and of itself (that NOTES shared the essential universality at the core of the 1. In a tragic twist, our friend’s sister just finished Atonement) be equal in power to the Atone- ten years in prison for a murder she didn’t commit, ment—a sort of philosopher’s stone, a holy grail?” because she was present and stoned with her husband Yes, that’s the point, yes. All art wants to be when he shot her best friend in a bar, then killed the part of the Atonement, to lead us to the life-giving waitress. He told her that when the police came to their waters of the river Jordan, to those six heavenly apartment to investigate he would be standing behind cities of refuge. the door with the gun pointed at her head and if she said anything to them he would shoot her. So she was prosecuted for obstruction of justice and providing a SOURCES gun to a felon, a gun she had bought to protect their ABC News, Primetime, 9 January 2003. “Conviction tattoo shop, not to give him. Overturned: Illinois Woman Exonerated in Daugh- 2. Paris’s AML-List posts are full of border crossing ter’s Death.” Transcript at: http://abcnews.go.com and the search for refuge. He gives some idea of why in /sections/primetime/DailyNews/convicted_mom_ his account of a violent head injury, “On Growing Up 030109.html. Tough,” Irreantum 3.2 (Summer 2001): 38–43. Allen, Paula Gunn, ed. The Song of the Turtle: American 3. The Green Mile offended me partly because the Indian Literature, 1974–1994. New York : Ballan- Christ symbolism at the end was so obvious, but mostly tine Books, 1996. because I simply couldn’t believe that after everything Anderson, Paris. Tough Luck, Sitting Bull’s Friend. John Coffey had done for the warden and the other jail- Orem, UT: Sharp Spear Press, 1999. ers they would not even try to save his life. If nothing ———. “On Growing Up Tough.” Irreantum 3.2 else, they could have claimed that the prisoner the (Summer 2001): 38–43. sadistic guard shot in his madness—the man who really Card, Orson Scott. Seventh Son. New York: Tor, 1987. murdered the two girls Coffey is sentenced for murder- Clark, Harlow S., Re: [AML] “Religious Educator” ing—shot him because he was taunting the guard about Article on Creative Arts. AML-List, 1 October the botched execution and asking if he were going to 2002. conveniently forget to put the wet sponge on John Halverson, Justin, Re: [AML] Gospel in Art. AML-List, Coffey’s head, and “wouldn’t that be fun because I 12 February 2003. killed those little girls, and a good old southern boy like King, Stephen, The Green Mile: The Complete Serial you sure must love the idea of putting a innocent nig- Novel. New York: Pocket Books, 1999. Filmed by guh to death.” Frank Darabont, CastleRock Entertainment, 1999. The ploy wouldn’t have to work for me to accept ———. “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemp- The Green Mile as a parable. There just has to be some tion.” In Different Seasons, 15–106. New York: attempt made to save his life. I suppose it’s part of the Penguin, 1982. thriller/false imprisonment genre. I found Stephen Parkin, Scott. Re: LDS Film and Its Critics Article. King’s opening paragraphs compelling, but since the AML-List, 8 November 2002. The thread was a book ends the same as the movie I decided not to read response to Keith Merrill’s online article “Throw- it. I would probably find it as unsatisfying as I would ing Stones at Ourselves: LDS Film and Its Critics,” have found “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Meridian Magazine, www.meridianmagazine.com. Redemption” if King had ended it with the guards find- Samuelsen, Eric, Re: Repudiating the darkness. . . . ing Andy Dufresne and shooting him down in a corn- AML-List, 24 Sepember 1999. field the morning after his escape. Trilling, Lionel. “On the Teaching of Modern Litera- 4. Of course, searching for this quote I find I have ture.” In Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and inverted Matthew 13:13: “Therefore speak I unto them Learning. New York, Viking Press, 1965. in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing Wolfe, Ivan Angus, Re: Artist’s Influence. AML-List, they hear not, neither do they understand.” A rather 7 March 2000. sarcastic comment, but my inversion is true to our exeget- ical sense, that Jesus spake in parables as a way of giving his hearers something to grasp upon later reflection.

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5. I sense, reading the story, that the authors think folks come with a pretentious smile and just this world they’ve created where government has the pretend to care. power to ask everyone to come to the hospital for a Would you want to jump up and say, “MY blood test is a good world, and see no overtones of evil SON DIED FOR YOU! DON'T YOU CARE?” in the doctor’s willingness to drain the boy dry of blood. Is that what GOD wants to say? “MY SON The culture he or she describes seems totalitarian, a DIED FOR YOU. DON'T YOU KNOW HOW common type in sci-fi dystopias, but the piece shows no MUCH I CARE?” awareness of the horror we should feel at a government Father, seeing it from your eyes breaks our that has the power to pressure, yea compel, a man to hearts. Maybe now we can begin to compre- give up his son’s life. hend the great Love you have for us.” 6. And yet I still hate the story. In rereading it while revising this paper I have the same visceral reaction, the The coercive packaging goes beyond the bludgeon- same sense the author is manipulating me rather than ing satire and shouting capitals. Like many e-mails I get sharing a story with me. this one included an altar call at the end: 7. In looking for this story on the Internet I found You can now spread the gospel . . . or delete it. several variants, including this addition to the ending: If you are not ashamed of God or what he has And then next week, when they have the done for you pass this on, PLEASE spread the ceremony to honor your son, and some folks word. Someone on your address list might not sleep through it, and some folks don’t even know God and this could change their life. So, come because they go to the lake, and some take a few moments to forward this.

122 Gathering in Nauvoo: The Lofgren Family Remembers

Elizabeth Mangum

fter the establishment of The Church of Jesus as a tribute to their sacrifice and fortitude. Increas- AChrist of Latter-day Saints in April 1830, its ingly popular are the sites that once acted as Church members were persecuted, driven from their homes, headquarters; places like Nauvoo see more and and terrorized for their beliefs. Early members more visitors every year. Expansion of the Church gathered in Nauvoo, Illinois, to seek refuge from gave leaders the opportunity to begin restoring the their tormentors and to attempt again to pay hom- abandoned homes and buildings of the small town age to their Lord with the construction of a temple. on the banks of the Mississippi River. The restora- President Gordon B. Hinckley describes their obe- tion process in Nauvoo officially began in 1962 dience despite threatening circumstances: “Denied under the direction of a privately owned corpora- the protection of the law and left to the mercy tion named Nauvoo Restoration, Inc.,3 headed by of the mob, they knew they would be forced to Dr. LeRoy Kimball. Ralph and Ruby Jones, who abandon their homes, their farms, and their city. happen to be my great-grandparents, lived in Nau- Nonetheless, they determined to complete the voo for a year working with this group, fostering temple.”1 Pioneers resolved to finish the temple goodwill and respect for Mormon activities and before being driven from their homes yet again, starting the search for artifacts left behind in the and they sacrificed all of their earthly possessions great migration of the 1840s and 1850s. Their to do so. Having a temple would mean the chance daughter, Donna Jones Lofgren, and her extended to make sacred covenants with the Lord; newly family have made at least four trips to Nauvoo revealed church ordinances, such as the receipt of since this restoration began. The first trek took holy endowments and the sealing of a couple in an place in 1963, and the most recent trip in June 2002 eternal marriage, could be performed only within culminated with the dedication of the now-restored the walls of a dedicated temple. These faithful temple. Several key aspects combine to qualify these members did eventually finish the construction, trips as pilgrimages, such as traveling as a group to but even Brigham Young had left the city by the holy places. Nauvoo is becoming a Mormon mecca time the Nauvoo Temple was completely dedicated of sorts, and rightfully so. as a house of the Lord in 1846.2 With a functioning temple and restored pio- Now part of a well-respected and widely recog- neer homes, Nauvoo has many more visitors today nized group, members of The Church of Jesus Christ than just the Lofgren family. My research focused of Latter-day Saints enjoy relative safety and peace. on the motivation for these pilgrimages: are they Temples around the world facilitate sacred ordi- tributes to pioneer forebears or just fulfillment of nances for both the living and the dead. The lands personal curiosity? What was so magical about a once settled and owned by pioneer members are town so small that it didn’t even have a McDonald’s slowly coming back into the possession of the Church restaurant? Visitors flocked to the temple during

123 AML Annual 2004 the summer of 2002, booking every empty bed in the gift shop—interrupted stories during oral inter- a one-hundred mile radius around the holy edifice. views. And did ten-year-old Diane really kill the A pilgrimage to Nauvoo almost became a status bunny when she sat on it so many years ago? Per- symbol among families in the Salt Lake Valley. Com- sonal experiences drew them back to Nauvoo, as if mercial tours touted popular speakers and guaran- they could recapture those nights spent catching fire- teed accommodations. Even the campground in flies next to the mighty river. Even though several Nauvoo spilled over with people who came to see noteworthy moments during the 2002 trip might the temple in its restored glory. The attention of have been mentioned—like the shouting match with thousands fixated on that one gleaming white the motel manager over the reservations made two building on the hill: the Nauvoo Temple. years prior—no one focused on those stories when For the Lofgren family, the connections to the first asked about Nauvoo. It was moments of child- Nauvoo Temple date back to the beginning. All hood and innocence that came up again and again told, sixteen ancestors of the Lofgren family even- as stories started out, “Were you there when . . . ?”5 tually migrated from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City, The return to Nauvoo was in many ways a return Utah. The Winegar and Judd families lived and to youth and simpler times. worked in Nauvoo to create the “city beautiful” Nauvoo became a place of family bonding as out of a murky, mosquito-infested swamp. Alvin family members shared feelings and values. With Winegar carved one of the original oxen for the the captive audience, the family used this trip to baptismal font in the first Nauvoo Temple. Mary cement their own personal histories. Remembering Judd was present at the early meetings of Relief the stories gave the experiences value, and increas- Society and was actively involved in the sisters’ ing the collective knowledge of those experiences Penny Fund, which bought glass for the temple ensured that someone would remember what had windows. Given the extensive family history in happened there. Stories like the supposed bunny Nauvoo, I assumed that would be the primary murder were told over and over and over, until even motivation to return as a large family group. As the the latest generation of ten-year-old cousins talked conversations about the trip in June 2002 pro- about it as if it happened yesterday. The blue cheese gressed, I found that it was just as much the per- factory and, yes, even the fireflies came up in sev- sonal history as it was the ancestral history that drew eral conversations.6 David Lofgren told the story at the crowd of twenty-four Lofgrens to the almost least twice on tape about working at the temple site hidden town in Illinois. From eighty-year-old in the 1960s as a landscape architect: once in Nauvoo David Lofgren to six-month-old Brooke Mangum, standing outside the temple and then again during they gathered in Nauvoo to share the family stories a group interview last October.7 For him, the temple and make a few new ones while they were at it. triggers the importance of education; an unusual When I interviewed the middle-aged Lofgrens, connection, he nonetheless uses the temple to per- almost no one talked at first about the pioneer suade children to stay in school and succeed aca- ancestors who were so pivotal in the construction demically. Simple stories turned into teaching of the temple and city. Instead, they spoke of the moments. The Lofgrens cemented the living gen- fun they had as children in Nauvoo when the town erations together by passing on these oral histories. was completely unrestored. Family members even It was these passed-on histories that gave the had a hard time coming up with stories from the family a sense of belonging in Nauvoo. Even my own most recent vacation just months before, yet had siblings, who went to Nauvoo for the first time in no trouble recounting stories from long ago. Dan 1990, talked about “when we were there before.”8 Lofgren spoke of wanting to show his kids the places I was surprised to hear that the reason my youngest he played as a child.4 Voracious debates about exactly brother Jordan wanted to go was because “it was which corner the five-and-dime store had been on going back to some place we’ve been to many a forty years ago—whether it was now the bank or time,”9 when in fact he had been there only once,

124 Gathering in Nauvoo: The Lofgren Family Remembers and as a four-year-old at that. He felt drawn into before. With all the progress and technological the heritage, and even though he didn’t remember advances, life in Nauvoo has changed very little most of it, he knew he was somehow a part of it. over the past forty years.14 Physically returning to a Although the town pulled strongly on some, other place that looked the same as it had in their youth family members didn’t feel quite the same need to gave family members a chance to relive and remem- return. Denice Smith, the youngest child of David ber that youth. Perhaps part of the power of Nauvoo and Donna Lofgren, chose not to take her family is its uncluttered structure: modern trappings have of six on this trip, even though the Smiths had yet to pervade the quiet town, allowing time for been on group vacations with the Lofgren family thought and contemplation. Nauvoo is physically before. When asked why, she responded that she distinct in its simplicity, giving a feeling of con- just didn’t feel the same connection to Nauvoo that stancy. The unchanging town echoes the eternal the other children had. She was only a toddler at nature of families sealed in the temple that now the time of the first trip and didn’t remember any functions again. of the significant moments that took place in While personal remembrance took precedence Nauvoo.10 Even though the sense of urgency to in the memories, a strong undercurrent of family return wasn’t quite universal, the collective family history surfaced soon enough in both group and and church experience in Nauvoo was still enough personal interviews. First connections had to be to motivate the orchestration of a ten-day pilgrim- made among the living generations, but they soon age for four generations of Lofgrens. expanded to continue back through the family Just like pioneer families, children in the Lof- line. These ideas are perhaps best summarized by gren family had little say in the cross-country jour- President Hinckley, who gave the following procla- ney. Some things never change. The adult Lofgrens mation at the dedication of the temple: “I am sure joked that they went in 1963 because Mom and there is a great unseen audience looking upon us, Dad threw them in the station wagon and started those who passed to the other side and see in the driving.11 The children of those children were structure which we dedicate today a fulfillment of equally pressured to be in attendance. Ben and their hopes, their dreams, and some compensation Doug Mangum, each newly married, fought to get for their tears and their indescribable sacrifices.”15 out of the familial obligation despite the bonus of Feelings of gratitude for what the Lofgren ancestors an all-expenses paid vacation. Ben Mangum and his accomplished swelled while we walked the streets wife Dawn at first did not plan on attending; school of Nauvoo. Walking west on Parley Street, looking and work made the long vacation a near impossi- back towards the temple, brought silent meditation bility. In the end, it was a desire to please the family and a few tears while we thought about how much and a small miracle in university scheduling that those ancestors suffered for their faith. Even Dawn got them there. Doug Mangum had no interest in Moyes Mangum, who married into the Lofgren taking his wife and new baby back to Nauvoo, family and was sure that she would have no per- since it meant spending endless days in the car, but sonal connection to Nauvoo, found that she in fact his wife Heather convinced him that they should had ancestors who lived and worked there.16 Sharing participate.12 Despite the struggles to get the fam- an experience with prior generations brings forth ily there, they feel it was all worth it. The traditions deep feeling as one of the defining characteristics of of Nauvoo are already extending to future genera- a pilgrimage; one historian notes that “the experi- tions. Ben and Dawn Mangum now talk of “when ence of a pilgrim in actually walking in the way of we go back” and reference taking their as-yet unborn others enables them to become a participant in all children,13 evidencing the value of the town and that has happened. The pilgrim becomes one with temple, but more importantly, the journey. all who have gone before.”17 Passing the portals of One by one, the Lofgrens all remarked about time, generations connect in Nauvoo. This magic how similar Nauvoo was to what they had seen is what keeps the visitors coming back.

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The children on the trip sensed the importance holy place. Several Lofgren family members noted of the journey simply because it was so obviously that “this wasn’t an ordinary trip.”20 The children important to the family. Group identity in both who had not been endowed in the temple recognized the family and the Church told them that Nauvoo that temples are sacred and holy and felt privileged was a special place. Going through the temple was to be allowed to enter. Since it was the temple that the crowning moment of the 2002 trip for all drew them to the city, it was the temple that stands involved, even though some could not articulate out in their memories. Other sacred sites around why. “It was just special,” Jennie Mangum kept Nauvoo added to the feeling of reverence and admi- saying.18 As nineteen-year-old Spencer Mangum ration for early Church members. Visiting Carthage said, “I thought a lot about those who had gone Jail brought tears to more than a few Lofgren eyes. before me and the sacrifices they had made on my Personally being in the place where the Prophet Joseph behalf, but overall, I had the feeling that I could in was killed sobered even rowdy boys; the group at no way truly comprehend what went on there.”19 last began to understand what the Church history A feeling of connection to these ancestors buzzed meant in terms of sacrifice. Like with many other through the town. Even those who did not have pilgrims, a holy destination helped them to “reflect direct ancestors in Nauvoo still sensed their pioneer on that which mediates holiness and so ultimately heritage as a member of the Churchwide family. on God himself.”21 The town radiates with holi- A sense of magical mysticism surrounded the ness, and a visitor is forever changed after having building and enveloped the town; a very real sense been though Nauvoo. of the presence of ancestors evidenced the impor- Although the journey ended in mid-June, the tance of the temple dedication. The Lofgrens needed final culminating event was the dedication of to be there as a family group to best comprehend the temple on June 27, 2003. Unlike any other that significance. The temple is about families being temple dedication, a sense of pride and “almost together forever, and the Lofgrens learned that possession” characterizes the feelings of those who family means more than just the people you eat were present at one of the dedicatory sessions.22 dinner with each night. Family means lots of gen- Their ancestors had built the first temple, and they erations; family means legacies and traditions; fam- personally had been to the new one. They had ily means having faith that what you are doing today walked those halls and had seen the world from will matter to someone else years down the road. inside the rose-colored windows. This temple was Admittedly, one motivation to go to Nauvoo visually and historically distinct, although func- was sheer curiosity about the restored temple and tionally identical to every other operating temple reverence for it. This journey was not just a per- in the world. As Diane Lofgren Mangum noted, sonal pilgrimage: it was also a religious pilgrimage “It was important that it was visually unique, and to a holy place. The history of the Church tells us visually accurate to the original.”23 Debra Lofgren how much the early Saints suffered in the city they Nichols wondered why the tour guides had kept had hoped would finally be safe. They knew a apologizing for the bright colors and ornate designs, temple would give them eternal assurance and when she thought it was perfect. She decided it was peace, even if physical safety could not be guaran- exactly as it should be, as a fitting tribute to the teed. Life in Nauvoo in the days of Joseph Smith original builders.24 This temple is a monument to revolved around the temple, just as it still does the Prophet Joseph and those who believed his today. This sacred site rightfully draws attention as words. This temple is for all the children who lost a tribute to the sacrifice of those members and their fathers to the mobs and for the families who their faithful obedience. Even though the Lofgrens lost their homes. This temple is in honor of the had traveled before as a large group to places like people who made our lives as members of the Church Laguna Beach, California, and Yellowstone Park, possible. Diane specifically voiced the importance this trip was unique in that the destination was a of the historical accuracy:

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It’s a wonderful tribute to the people who built 6. Diane Lofgren Mangum, Daniel Lofgren, and it the first time and had to walk away. They Debra Nichols, interview by Elizabeth Mangum, video dedicated it before, handed the key to a man, recording, Salt Lake City, 20 October 2002. walked away, and it was never used again from 7. David Lofgren, interview by Elizabeth Mangum, that moment on. So to just build a museum video recording, Salt Lake City, 20 October 2002. wasn’t right. It needed to be built as a working 8. Ben Mangum and Dawn Moyes Mangum, inter- temple because that way it would stand for the view by Elizabeth Mangum, video recording, Salt Lake same things for which the original was built. City, 26 October 2002. They had to stand for the same purpose.25 9. Jordan Mangum, interview by Elizabeth Mangum, Church leaders used the finest materials known in video recording, Salt Lake City, 26 October 2002. 10. Denice Smith, interview by Elizabeth Mangum, building the Nauvoo Temple. Even the lockers video recording, Salt Lake City, 20 October, 2002. made of walnut show the respect and honor the 11. Diane Lofgren Mangum, Daniel Lofgren, and Church gives to its martyred prophet and his faith- Debra Nichols interview. ful friends. A functioning temple in Nauvoo shows 12. Heather Arrington Mangum, interview by that we as a Church will continue to rise above any Elizabeth Mangum, video recording, Salt Lake City, setbacks to perform the work of the Lord. 26 October 2002. Approximately one hundred and fifty years 13. Ben Mangum and Dawn Moyes Mangum after the Mormons headed west and left their city interview. and temple behind, they are returning. An east- 14. Diane Lofgren Mangum, Daniel Lofgren, and ward migration of Mormons lasted for most of the Debra Nichols interview. summer of 2002 as over three hundred thousand 15. Gerry Avant. “Crowning Objective of Joseph’s people traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois, to see the Life,” LDS Church News, 29 June 2002, as found on temple restored to its previous glory. The motives http://www.desnews.com/cgi-bin/cqcgi/@cnews.env? CQ_SESSION_KEY=KTZYLLYEUBSC&CQ_CUR_ may be different, but a shared sense of heritage and DOCUMENT=3&CQ_TEXT_MAIN=YES. group commitment makes the gathering monu- 16. Dawn Moyes Mangum, interview by Elizabeth mental. Connections to personal experience and Mangum, video recording, Salt Lake City, 26 October group identity—ancestry and Church membership 2002. specifically—have made Nauvoo an important 17. Martin Robinson. Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: gathering place again. For the Lofgren family, this An Anthology of Pilgrimage (London: HarperCollins, trip helped them to remember their family and 1997), 116. their God. 18. Jennie Mangum, interview by Elizabeth Mangum, video recording, Salt Lake City, 26 October 2002. 19. Spencer Mangum to Elizabeth Mangum, NOTES unpublished letter, 4 November 2002. 1. Gordon B. Hinckley, “This Magnificant Struc- 20. Diane Lofgren Mangum, Daniel Lofgren, and ture,” LDS Church News, June 29, 2002, as found on Debra Nichols interview. http://www.desnews.com/cn/view/1,1721,285001172, 21. Robinson, Sacred Places, 32. 00.html. 22. Diane Lofgren Mangum, Daniel Lofgren, and 2. Diane L. Mangum, Nauvoo for Kids: An Activity Debra Nichols interview. History Book (Salt Lake City: Pinecone Publications, 23. Ibid. 2002), 71. 24. Ibid. 3. Richard O. Cowan, Temples to Dot the Earth 25. Diane Mangum interview. (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 1997), 62. 4. Daniel Lofgren, interview by Elizabeth Mangum, video recording, Salt Lake City, 20 October 2002. 5. Diane Mangum to Elizabeth Mangum, unpub- lished letter, 18 November 2002.

127 Sister Bean and Satan’s Power: A Look at LDS Contemporary Legends

Ronda Walker

everal months ago Sister Bean (not her real power. Heavenly Father decided to send this Sname) in my Utah LDS ward raised her hand in boy down to earth with Down’s syndrome— response to a comment by the teacher. The instruc- this way Satan would not be able to have any tor was talking about the struggles that children and control over him. their parents sometimes have as their children are By the time Sister Bean was finished with her being reared. This woman shared her opinions story, my head was pounding, my hands sweating, about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day and it was all I could do to not laugh, cry, or leave Saints’ youth of today, their status in pre-earth life, the room! I turned to my husband and told him and the difficulties and temptations they encounter that I could not believe what I had just heard. Sis- in today’s world because of their pre-earth life roles ter Bean was so sincere in her telling. She told her or status. She then went on to validate this view by story with fervor and an honest conviction of the sharing the following story: truthfulness of it. There was a moment of silence There’s a lady in my mother’s ward whose after the telling of the story. I looked around in friend has a son with Down’s syndrome. These disbelief as I saw several people wiping their eyes. parents often questioned why they had a son The teacher then thanked Sister Bean for shar- who was disabled and why such a good boy ing and continued on with his lesson. I left the wasn’t able to have a healthy mind and body. room and spent the remainder of the class time This son turned sixteen and desperately wanted pacing the halls. to receive his patriarchal blessing. His parents Having heard Jan Brunvand’s presentations on balked at the idea, but they soon relented and urban legends at the Fife Conference held in the son went to the patriarch’s house to receive Logan, Utah, in 2000, I was particularly sensitive this blessing. The blessing was given and the to the story told. Brunvand’s lecture, along with son returned home. A few days later a typed several other resources, gave me some insight into copy of the blessing was received in the mail. the telling and a bias toward the nature of the story. The son opened it and shared it with his par- Brunvand, in his lecture at the conference, said ents. The blessing stated that this young man urban legends are contemporary stories that are had been a general in the army during the War in Heaven. This boy’s efforts helped to thwart spread orally, and they are usually told about some Satan’s work and the War in Heaven was won issue pertinent to the culture in which they are partly because of this boy’s involvement. Because shared, and they are reflections of the concerns of of this, Satan vowed to do everything in his that culture. Legends such as the one above appeal power to make this general’s life on earth mis- to the audience’s and teller’s emotions, are often erable and hard. Heavenly Father heard this and plausible but not possible, and they rely on contin- didn’t want this boy to be a victim of Satan’s uous sharing in order to stay alive.

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Brunvand said urban and contemporary leg- don’t make sense, Sister Bean’s story, and others such ends are told for a variety of reasons, one being to as this one, give answers to circumstances otherwise reassure. Inspiring stories are often used to appeal unexplainable. I believe Sister Bean told this story to the audience’s and teller’s emotions and put to solidify the feelings and emotions within this order into an otherwise disorderly world or when a particular culture. It was meant to give the group a life trial is questioned. The above story was used in feeling of oneness; the adult Sunday School class this particular context. One of the ways these leg- could all understand the story without any further ends reassure is by telling stories specific to a par- explanations. ticular culture using words and phrases unique to This story is plausible, but is it possible? In Jan that group. Folklorist Elliott Oring says narratives Brunvand’s book The Vanishing Hitchhiker, Brun- are performed in specific social contexts consti- vand says this about believability: tuted by a specific group of people, a specific set In the world of modern urban legends there of principles governing their interrelationship, and is usually no geographical or generational gap a specific and symbolic environment present at between the teller and event. The story is true; the time of narration. He says the understanding it really occurred, and recently, and always to of a narrative is governed by understanding the someone else who is quite close to the narrator, situation in which it is told—as in the world of or at least “a friend of a friend.” Contemporary LDS parents. legends are told both in the course of casual Why was this story told? Sister Bean was conversations and in such special situations as acknowledging the instructor’s message by sharing campfires, slumber parties, and college dormitory an inspirational story of her own. In doing this she bull sessions, emails [and may I add, Sunday was confirming the LDS belief, or the values of the School classes]. The legends’ physical settings community, that God is aware of each of his chil- are often close by, real, and sometimes even dren’s needs. She is also validating the ideologies locally renowned for other such happenings concerning pre-earth life, a war in heaven, and the [the patriarch’s home, the family’s home, the encouragement received from patriarchal blessings. message coming in the mail; the circumstances surrounding the patriarchal blessing are easily Using words specific to the LDS culture, only understood because most of the adults have the inside group would be able to understand the received their blessings]. Though the charac- significance of the story. An outsider might under- ters in the stories are usually nameless, they are stand Down’s syndrome, blessings or prayers, and true-to-life examples of the kind of people the the concerns a family might have when rearing a narrators and their audience know firsthand. disabled child. But the outsider would not likely understand the significance of a patriarchal bless- It’s possible that everyone in the class knew ing, the meaning behind a war in heaven, and why someone who is a parent of a disabled child, even God was protecting this boy from further pain. some in the class were parents to special-needs chil- Brunvand says that in choosing to tell a specific dren. Sister Bean is sharing, what to her, is a true story at a particular time certain feelings are being event. She believes this story to be true and has acted out. William A. Wilson (Bert) calls this the specifics to validate this. In addition, the story “if/then” quality. We are looking for the means that came from her mother and in turn from her justify the ends—“If my child was born disabled, mother’s friend, both reliable or believable sources. and if I believe there is a loving Father in Heaven, Certain other factors make this story feasible. then there must be some amazing reason for this Many LDS people have received their patriarchal child being disabled.” Parents of disabled children blessings. In these blessings the LDS culture believes might find comfort in a story such as this. In this that specific information pertaining to that per- story there are answers to questions that often go son is revealed. Receiving news about pre-earth life unanswered. In a world where many aspects of life duties is therefore believable. Perhaps the most

130 Sister Bean and Satan’s Power: A Look at Contemporary LDS Legends specific factor to believability is where the story is source before becoming a party to causing specula- told. In this religious setting the audience would be tion and discussions that steal time away from the respectful of the storyteller and the story. The pos- things that would be profitable and beneficial and sibility of personal revelation would not be ques- enlightening to their souls. . . . I would earnestly tioned. LDS Church members are taught they can urge that no such idle gossip be spread abroad receive answers to their prayers and receive prompt- without making certain as to whether or not it is ings from the Holy Spirit, or personal revelation. true. . . . As I say, it never ceases to amaze me how In an adult Sunday School class, many parents can gullible some of our Church members are in relate to having physically or mentally challenged broadcasting these sensational stories, or dreams, children. Parents often wonder why and ask this or visions, some alleged to have been given to question, at least to themselves, occasionally. The Church leaders, past or present, supposedly from story appeals to this emotional understanding and some person’s private diary, without first verifying questioning by parents; it confirms and comforts the report with proper sources.” In the Ensign, those who are asking why. Dallin H. Oaks, an LDS General Authority, says Again in The Vanishing Hitchhiker, Brunvand this about discussing miracles, “Most of the mir- writes, “People still tell legends, . . . and other folk acles we experience are not to be shared. Consis- take time to listen to them, not only because of tent with the teachings of the scriptures, we hold their inherent plot interest but because they seem them sacred and share them only when the Spirit to convey true, worthwhile, and relevant informa- prompts us to do so.” tion, albeit partly in a subconscious mode. In other With these statements as warnings to all LDS words, such stories are ‘news’ presented to us in an tellers and their audiences, why do we as LDS people attractive way, with hints of larger meanings.” The continue to share stories such as this? There is that parents of this Down’s syndrome child are receiv- germ of truth as the story reflects the concerns of ing a heavenly answer to an earthly question. parents and others within the LDS culture. It reas- Often this searching for deeper understanding sures the congregation about others’ status with makes the LDS culture and perhaps other religious God by restating how they should react to and units more vulnerable to sensationalism. In the past year and a half I have seen contemporary leg- accept those with disabilities. Also, Sister Bean is a ends develop quickly (shared almost exclusively on neighbor, friend, and contemporary or sister in the the internet) and die quickly—Twin Towers and gospel. The audience would not discount the feel- LDS missionaries, Logan Temple and the Russian ings of someone whose sincerity is so strong and pairs figure skaters. But many others legends con- who relays this story in a voice filled with emotion. tinue to live on—stories abound regarding LDS Eric Snider, a writer for Provo’s Daily Herald, calls missionaries and their protectors (thanks to Bert this, “We believe all things: stuff we keep passing Wilson); Three Nephite tales; LDS girl who is around even though it’s not true.” In addition, if beaten while on a date, risks death to avoid losing I have heard stories similar to this, even if I am her virginity, marries in the temple with her virgin- uncomfortable with the story, I can justify the ity intact; and the age-old story regarding the believability, “I’ve heard this story several times father, son, and the train decision. On an Internet before—it must be true.” I begin to take this story web page devoted to LDS legends, past LDS Church and refer to it every time I encounter a disabled president Harold B. Lee is quoted, “The first is the person, “Maybe everyone with Down’s, Autism, etc., spread of rumor and gossip which, when once is likewise blessed.” I can go from skeptic to started, gains momentum as each telling becomes believer in a relatively short amount of time. Bert more fanciful, until unwittingly those who wish to Wilson suggests that stories such as these are win- dwell on the sensational repeat them in firesides, in dows to our past and also a means to understand- classes, and gatherings without first verifying the ing contemporary situations.

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Stories such as this act as a social mirror—tes- cuss, scream, and stomp? What is the criterion for tifying to the validity of church beliefs and doc- going from difficult to blessed? trines. In reinforcing specific aspects of LDS belief, Legends depend on continued sharing in order those who hear and share the story are more apt to to stay alive. In Sister Bean’s narrative, the story attempt to remain worthy enough to have their remained alive. With Sister Bean telling the own spiritual experience—similar to the ones they story that might seem personal to someone else, are aware of. Personal and private spiritual experi- was she claiming authority to the telling and saying ences will be compared to the sensationalized sto- that this type of experience was all right to share ries heard and worthiness will be based on the in a public place? She really wasn’t that great a extremeness of the story being compared. How- storyteller. The specifics of a good story were not ever, as long as the LDS Church teaches that God evident here. She seemed intent on relaying the knows each one of his children individually and message, passing it on, rather than sharing details. that each child of God is capable of having a per- As it was received, a new source for the telling was sonal correspondence with God, the LDS audience being developed. Who will be the next teller? will never be lacking in stories. There will always There is a certain appeal to this tale. There is a mes- be some sort of divine intervention—whether as a sage which would wow a vulnerable audience. The missionary, a parent, a young person on a date, or story is based on LDS beliefs. The elements to keep a convert to the Church. the story alive are there. People will listen; true Brunvand says the lack of verification does not information is being passed on; there might be some- diminish the appeal of the story. The first time I thing worthwhile in the telling; and who knows heard this story I too was touched by the message. what I might learn that would benefit my sister. I have two hearing-impaired children and have In the transmission, the story will most likely often wondered “why me.” I also have a sister who retain its core, but in the sharing, which aspects has a child with disabilities, we’ve talked about the will change? Will the next storyteller likewise be “whys.” I have friends who have disabled and “dif- focused on only the passing on of the information, ficult” children; they too have had questions con- accurately or not? Will the situation have a specific cerning the eternal implications of rearing disabled location? The story may change in form, but most children. However, I do know that the spiritual likely its function will not change. The frequent answers I have received regarding my children’s wel- transmission of this story may die down at some fare are personal and private and not meant to be point and then resurrect in a different form (loca- shared in any setting other than one intimate and tion, time frame, characters) in a few years. But the sacred. I likewise would be embarrassed to have central issues will live on in this retelling. their story or their patriarchal blessings shared with On the web site, LDSWorld.com, this particu- people whom I do not know. I would want to lar legend is cited as one to not be told or believed, remain in control of the story and of its telling. In that the truthfulness of it cannot be verified. The addition, what does this story say to people whose following statement is made by the web managers children are healthy? What about the disabled chil- directly after the story is told, “Very suspicious— dren, physically or mentally disabled, who had completely undocumented, no information on the nothing like this stated in their blessings? The LDS location or time of the events, and the doctrines doctrine teaches that we do not know a lot about the story implies just don’t make sense. Also, infor- pre-earth life, and additionally, we don’t believe in mation given in Patriarchal Blessings is intended predestination. Don’t we learn, in this story, that to be personal and private, and not to be shared this child’s destiny was predetermined? What about with the world.” on the days these parents, or even the child, can’t In a conversation with Darlene Hutchison, man- handle one more demand placed on them? Do they ager of Church Public Affairs, the LDS Church has feel guilty when they ask, “Why me?” or perhaps become very concerned about the telling of this

132 Sister Bean and Satan’s Power: A Look at Contemporary LDS Legends story and other “feel good” stories. The Church’s alive by sharing it, but hopefully I have also put to admonishment to members is that when sharing sleep the misconceptions which went along with stories in any church functions or about church- or the initial telling. I have been asked by several of the doctrinal-related information, General Authori- people I have shared this story with the question ties, gospel sensitive or sacred items, that members that Brunvand posed to the conference audience, make sure the story is verified for truthfulness or “But is it true?” And like Brunvand, I have answered, permission is given and cited. Hutchison said the “Be skeptical. Be very skeptical.” LDS Church’s Correlation Department carefully researches every story published in the Church magazines and told by Church authorities in their WORKS CITED addresses to Church members. She told me that Brunvand, Jan. “Hooked on the Urban Legend.” Lec- members are asked to use stories that are their own ture presented at the 2000 Fife Conference, Logan, or refer to the scriptures when making a point. UT, 7 June 2000. I believe that because of the weight LDS people ———. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban put on personal faith-promoting experiences, Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1981. members are particularly gullible to false, stretched, Hutchison, Darlene. Manager, The Church of Jesus or sensationalized stories, no matter how many Christ of Latter-day Saints, Public Affairs. Inter- tinglies or warm-fuzzies are felt when these stories view by author, Salt Lake City, 13 March 2002. are told. Murdock, April. “Mormon Myths Denounced at Major In a talk given at BYU–Idaho, in April 2001, Forum,” http://www.ricks.edu/Scroll/pages/saints1p Robert Marrot, of the school’s religion department, .htm. 19 April 2001. said, “Myths are things we may or might think are Oaks, Dallin H. “Miracles.” Ensign 31 (June 2001). true that really are not true, or at least not verified. Oring, Elliott, ed. Folk Groups and Folk Genres: An Myths can be harmless and fun, whether true or Introduction. Logan: Utah State University Press, false, but when they undermine gospel truth and 1986. testimony, they can be devastating or just plain Snider, Eric. “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned stupid. . . . It is essential to get information straight at BYU Education Week.” Daily [Provo] Herald, 18 August 2000, sec. C1. from the source and to not believe everything that Wilson, William A. Conversation with the author, others claim General Authorities [or others] have March 2002. said. . . . It is sad that often when a cherished myth ———. “Freeways, Parking Lots, and Ice Cream is exposed as false, a person’s testimony is dashed. Stands: The Three Nephites in Contemporary Some people lose confidence in the Church or its Society.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought members.” 21.3 (Autumn 1988): 12–26. Understanding why stories such as this one are http://www.ldswrld.com/gems/ul. 3 March 2002. told can allow insight into the culture in which it’s told. Does this legend appeal to the audience’s and teller’s emotions? You bet. Most LDS parents can find something in the telling that tugs at their heartstrings. Is it plausible but not possible? I guess. There is truth to the story, but there are enough open doors to not make this story tight and well documented. Will this story rely on continuous retelling to keep it alive—if I had not heard the story in my Sunday School class I would not have written this paper and not shared with many people my experience. I myself have kept the story

133 Mormon Women Writers and the Healing Power of Truth

Kelly Thompson

My faith in God, who is eternally loving and constant wanted to inscribe. I wanted to be honest in my even as my understanding grows and changes, writing, but I also desired to be a worthy, charita- makes life not only worth living, ble member of my church. Virginia Woolf fittingly but gives me the courage to disturb the universe. identified one aspect of my dilemma. She named Madeleine L’Engle this problem after a famous Victorian poem, The ince I was a young girl I have desired to write Angel in the House, a woman who “must charm . . . Sand record stories from my family’s history. As sympathize . . . flatter . . . conciliate . . . be extremely an eleven-year-old, I produced a family newsletter sensitive to the needs and moods and wishes of for my extended Thompson family. I remember others before her own . . . excel in the difficult arts being frustrated that other family members did not of family life” (qtd. in Olsen, 34). While I didn’t take up the cause. As a freshman in high school, want to entirely annihilate this “angel” part of I wanted to pursue oratory. I believed I would do myself, as Virginia Woolf did when she set out to well composing “personal essays,” but oratory’s close kill her, I wanted to know about how like-minded association with the more cantankerous debate individuals had shared their stories. squad scared me off. In my attempts to write my Not only did I grapple with issues of honesty, favorite family stories, however, I encountered sev- I also repeatedly encountered expressions of my eral obstacles. I didn’t know how to deal with the faith in my writing. As a member of The Church of petty and annoying aspects of my personality and Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have made my those of my family members—people I know well faith an integral part of my life and the life of and care very much about. Desiring to bring to life my family. This faith literally permeates every my grandmother in a character sketch, I didn’t know aspect of my existence. But my writing didn’t seem quite how to handle those characteristics that were an appropriate place for outcroppings of faith. My not necessarily celebrated by the family—her pride, insecurities that my experience was not acceptable, for example. I wondered, “Exactly how honest for whatever reason, got the better of me. Once should I be?” “Is there a best way to tell these sto- again, I felt stifled as a writer. I’ve since come to ries?” “How do I tell a story about Grandma when understand that I was coming up against what it might reveal her prideful ways?” There isn’t any Tillie Olsen refers to as “censorship silences” (9). grave disclosure that I feel compelled to make; it is I wondered how I could write what I know, espe- just the lesser weaknesses, the nitpicky everyday cially when what I know is so infiltrated with my irritations that have interfered with my ability to Mormon experience. How was I to write about a write. I desired to know how one presents them life lived in a Utah setting? How would I create sto- when they seem a requisite part of a story? Such ries stemming from a life lived as a member of a questions kept me from telling the stories I so relatively unknown and complicated religious

135 AML Annual 2004 experience? Was there an audience for such writ- in my life, especially my religion and my situation ing? Would I betray my people or exploit my eth- as a woman within this culture (Christ, 2). Conse- nicity if my writing dealt with Mormon-related quently, my thesis manuscript means a lot to me. matters? I didn’t recognize it fully then, but I I desire to share with you what I consider the most sensed that I had to confront my religious culture important points as well as some of my favorite before I could tell my stories. As Carolyn Kay stories about these writers. Steedman writes in her essay “Stories,” “specificity The main analysis of my work centers upon of place and politics has to be reckoned with in the historians and essayists Juanita Brooks and making an account of anybody’s life, and their use Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, poet Emma Lou Thayne, of their own past” (243). Little did I apprehend and fiction writers Margaret Blair Young, Louise then the involved questions that I would ask and Plummer, Phyllis Barber, Virginia Sorensen, and the searching I would undertake to find answers to Rachel Ann Nunes. For the sake of comparison, my questions. I also reference Minerva Teichert (the “Mormon” Naturally, confronted with these dilemmas, artist), Mary Susannah Fowler (“Mormon Healer I developed a desire to find a mentor—someone and Folk Poet”), and Christian writers Madeleine who was like me spiritually and who had written L’Engle and Kathleen Norris. I also incorporate her stories. I wanted to learn how she recorded thoughts from Elaine Cannon and Chieko Okasaki. accounts of life as a Mormon woman. As Adrienne Admittedly, many of the dilemmas encountered by Rich suggests in much of her poetry, I desired to go the women in this study are typical of women writ- back in history in search of a healing vision ers anywhere but with specific challenges due to (Christ, 77). Like other women writers with a their Mormon affiliation. unique background such as Alice Walker, I’ve felt Through this undertaking, I have realized that “consumed by the need to find [my] past, to trace there are contemporary Mormon women writers lineages that will empower [me] to live in the pres- in all kinds of genres. Historians, fiction writers, ent.” It made sense then to study Western women poets, and essayists—these women have con- writers and Mormon women writers in particular tributed in thoughtful ways to the Latter-day Saint as I pursued a master’s degree in English. literary tradition. There are other women writers When the time came for me to write my thesis, whom I chose not to include in my investigation I interviewed several Mormon women writers by simply because I had to narrow my focus. I chose telephone, by email, or in person. The questions I women who I thought would offer me the most asked them focused on their self-perceptions as personally—women who seemed to have strong artists and on the development of those percep- faith in God, who believed in the LDS Church, tions. I asked about their subject matter, schedules, and who had or desired to have children. and motivations as writers. I queried them about I discovered that like me, many Mormon how their affiliation with the LDS Church has women feel the need to write, and I would agree influenced them, especially in terms of censorship. with E. M. Forester, who stated, “How can I tell I desired to know how their art and their personal what I think till I see what I say?” (319). As Louis relationships affect each other. Who were their Plummer expresses it, “Most people who write and mentors? Consequently, my thesis is not a conven- keep writing just need to write, they just feel crazy tional analysis of literary works. I focus on much if they’re not writing” (personal interview). They more than just the final product. I also investigate write to make sense of the world around them. the process behind the publications of these intelli- Plummer reworks her life through her writing. She gent and talented women. says, “You sort of rework your whole adolescence The process of writing this thesis on contem- by writing. And get it right this time. You can porary Mormon women writers transformed me. make it worse than it was and better than it was. So I examined the “powers that provide orientation” that in the end, you end up liking yourself better

136 Mormon Women Writers and the Healing Power of Truth than you did as an adolescent. At least that’s been jective disempowerment by the ‘subjecting’ dis- true for me” (personal interview). Rachel Ann courses of others” (266). In other words, no matter Nunes says, “I can’t not write. I must write. I am the tradition one inherits, writing is the forum happier when I do. It fills a need within me that wherein a person interprets that tradition for him nothing else can fill” (personal interview). or herself. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich says that she writes to I believe that many of these women writers are make sense of the chaos around her. In fact, Ulrich kindred spirits. Along with deeply rooted spiritual recognizes that all her work in women’s history has convictions and a love for words and language, been a way for her to get control of the amazing most of them have also struggled with issues of power in her own history. self-confidence. Ulrich admits in her University Those of us born in the Church usually come of Utah 1992 Commencement Address that there out of Primary with a picture in our heads of a have been times when she didn’t believe in her best pioneer grandmother resolutely crossing the gifts. In her essay “Patchwork” (1988), she tells plains. In time that image hardens into bronze, that while she may have been a high-achiever, she returning to haunt us in vulnerable moments— was a “wimp at heart” (Ulrich and Thayne, 25). on the delivery table, for instance, or while A personality test she took thirty years ago as a stu- driving through heavy traffic to yet another dent at the University of Utah revealed that in the meeting. Even converts learn early to sing the category of “Autonomy” her “score was so low as to old refrain: “If the pioneers could do it, why be almost invisible” (25). She writes, “Readers of not we?” Church periodicals reinforce our gen- this essay who have the mistaken impression that I eral sense of flabbiness with stories of faithful am a totally liberated, self-directed person should wives dying under dripping canvas in the middle know that I have never gone job hunting” (26). of Iowa while reciting the Biblical “Whither Her intellectual life was built from “‘jest what hap- though goest . . . ” Such things surely happened. pens to come’” (25). Part of what happened to Yet most of us have less need for vicarious come involved looking back at and standing upon grand moments than for an understanding of the shoulders of her Mormon and literary fore- the everyday. (qtd. in Bushman, 241–42) mothers. Her need to understand these pioneering women In her essay “Fear, I Embrace You,” Louise has been the impetus behind her work as a histo- Plummer shares her lifelong desire to make her rian. In several publications, she has brought to life mark on the world as a talented artist. She says that the daily lives of pioneering women, including as a younger person she was clear about the work Martha Ballard, the midwife in her Pulitzer Prize– she wanted to do: drawing and writing. But she winning book A Midwive’s Tale: The Life of Martha became afraid of it. She tells how at the University Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812. of Utah as an art major the “efficient, brusque air Emma Lou Thayne describes writing as a way about [the librarian] intimidated her” (77). Conse- to “explain me to myself” (Ulrich and Thayne, 8). quently, Plummer got a C in art. It wasn’t until she She says, “I write because nothing seems really to was thirty years old that she had the courage to ask have happened to me until I write about it—a new for help. Because of chronic fear, she describes her- baby, a trip to Russia, a doubt or a joy—clarifica- self as a classic late bloomer (78). The writers here tion and catharsis by writing are built into my sys- learned that “‘the self’ can be communal, engaged, tem as surely as faith in ‘my Savior and Friend’” and dialogical as well as individual, detached, and (Ulrich and Thayne, 194). As noted by Regenia introspective,” as expressed by Virginia Woolf (qtd. Gagnier in “The Literary Standard, Working-Class in Gagnier, 264). Autobiography, and Gender,” “Autobiography is Perhaps through their writing, these women the arena of empowerment to represent oneself in a writers have arrived at a developmental point in discursive cultural field as well as the arena of sub- which they are willing to share the discoveries they

137 AML Annual 2004 make in the process of writing. Call it egotism or explores difficult issues and writes stories that have call it humility—these women endure and submit unsettling endings. to the consequences of their need, their passion, to As with Anne Bradstreet’s writings, we can write. Fortunately, these women have significant observe in the works of these Mormon women others who support and encourage them to not writers, “a unique harmonizing of the divine, the only develop their writing talents but to trust secular, and the personal, a unifying of a public themselves. The account told by Juanita Brooks of and a private consciousness” (Mason, 322). I have how her father encouraged her to listen and gleaned much from the examples of these Mormon respond to her inner voice inspires me. On one women in terms of their devotion to their families occasion, her instinct regarding their horse proved and to God. I am grateful for the way they demon- more fitting than the counsel her father had given strate the fact that women can develop their talents her. Concerning the matter, her father said: and enjoy fulfilling relationships. Ulrich rises early “My girl, I think you should follow your (five o’clock) to write. She works until about nine hunches—that is, if you have a strong feeling o’clock. She says she is at her best in the early hours. you should pay attention to it, whether it goes When her children were younger, Ulrich often left against my counsel or anyone else’s. But be household chores for others to do. Her son Karl careful. In general, it is better to do your describes (in an article titled “Confessions of a assigned duty. You did the best you could. That Feminist’s Child”) a morning when “the blender is all any of us can do. But you must learn that was screaming, the eggs were boiling over, and the life is full of sorrow and disappointments. toast was cold in the toaster while [his] mom sat When it comes, we must take it with patience. five feet away at the kitchen table typing her last This may teach you to follow your own inner paper for her masters degree.” He continued, guide in the future.” (qtd. in Brooks, 174) “I looked at what I thought my mother wanted out This teaching of her father served Brooks well of life and said to myself, I’ll do it myself and throughout her life. She followed the truth inside grabbed the nearest box of Cheerios. Cheerios led of herself, often at great social expense, as she did to omelets” (Karl Ulrich, 18). when she published her famous Mountain Meadow During the time when she was a young mother Massacre. with five daughters under the age of ten, a part- In her essay titled “The Mormon Woman as time university teaching position, and other com- Writer,” Phyllis Barber desires to have the strength munity responsibilities, Thayne’s writing schedule to serve her personal integrity. She says she hopes was not necessarily systematic. She wrote whenever to be “brave enough to stand my ground when hail she could. But to ensure that she would get her as big as golf balls pelts my hide” (Barber, 118). writing goals accomplished, she used to work She believes that truth is discovered in the creative through the night once a week. One sleepless night process. “If any of us think we know all the answers provided her enough time to achieve her literary in our despair or in our certainty, there is nothing ambitions. She was able to do this because she left to explore” (Barber, 111). never suffered from a lack of energy, and if she just Margaret Blair Young, co-author of a trilogy got to sleep at her regular bedtime the next night, about blacks in the Church, believes that honestly she’d be fine (personal interview). confronting the pain in Mormon history requires Rachel Ann Nunes sets out to accomplish her more than a superficial understanding of those daily writing goals at the beginning of each day but events, one that avoids easy answers that can inter- with little children still in her care, it often drags fere with heart-felt compassion. Believing that into a whole-day project. She stays in her pajamas good fiction goes to those places where life is hard, until her writing is done. She admits that some- where the characters must rise to the occasion times she picks up her children from school still of their most intimidating challenges, Young wearing her pajamas. But she streamlines her life so

138 Mormon Women Writers and the Healing Power of Truth that she achieves her writing goals. She does not this experience affected her (personal interview). answer the phone or email until it fits her schedule, However, her response, like those of earlier women nor does she clean her house or go grocery shop- such as Brooks, was a faithful one. Instead of tak- ping. She delegates much of that work to her hus- ing offense, she found a way to voice her concerns. band and children. Nunes says that she’s learned to All God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir, the book say no when it infringes with her writing time. She she wrote with Emma Lou Thayne, was “ a delib- believes that “you must respect your time so that erate response to the bitterness of that period.” She others will also” (personal interview). says, “ I think Emma Lou and I both felt there had Much of the writing of these women centers to be a way to talk about women’s issues in a less around their relationships in respectful and yet polarizing way” (personal interview). authentic ways. Thayne co-wrote Hope and Recovery Plummer demonstrates her faith when she with her daughter. It is the account of her daugh- challenges members of her stake listening to her ter’s struggle with anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and talk, “Strengthening the Family,” to stop pretend- manic depression. Thayne reveals the traumatic ing that problems don’t exist, because that isolates nature of the ordeal and her feelings about her mis- us one from another. She encourages her audience takes in dealing with the situation. In Plummer’s to “share our stories and not hide them . . . from essay “Strengthening the Family,” she reveals the each other. If we tell our stories, others will feel free worst day in her life was when her angry son “grasped to tell theirs without fear of judgment or conde- [her] around the throat in a headlock, pulled [her] scension. Sharing stories with each other gives us to the floor, and said, strangling [her], ‘Don’t tell the strength to move on” (Plummer, 48). It’s much me what to do, or I’ll kill you. Do you hear me? I’ll like the scriptures wherein we read about indi- kill you’” (Plummer, 45). In spite of the serious viduals with weaknesses and frailties who interact nature of their writing, Thayne and Plummer with God, are forgiven, and accomplish miracu- modeled ways in which to write respectfully about lous things. Moreover, sharing our stories makes it such topics. Thayne wrote about her daughter’s possible for us to know and bear one another’s bur- difficulty only when her daughter was ready, twenty dens. Nevertheless, we must share and support years later. Plummer shared the experience with judiciously, as these women writers exemplify. her son only after he had overcome his anger and I can relate to the obstacles to writing that the she had asked his permission. women in this examination confronted. My I also admire these women for their faith. In desire—worthy, charitable, and yes, perfect—has the case of Juanita Brooks, she felt compelled to stifled my development. However, in the course of tell the story of the Mountain Meadow massacre. researching this thesis, I explored potential silenc- This telling adversely affected her relationship with ing obstacles, and, in the end, determined that many fellow Saints, and yet she stood firm and has they are not as difficult to overcome as I originally affected positively how the LDS Church confronts thought. It is just a matter of making up my own its history. Moreover, Brooks did not want to do mind about who I am and where I am going from anything to endanger her standing in the Church. here and confidently fulfilling my mission as exem- She was a lifelong, committed member of the LDS plified by the women in this study (Cannon, 134; faith and believed that her ability to tell the story of Chase, 77). Moreover, upon closer examination, the massacre and possibly effect change was I’ve come to appreciate that the tensions inherent strengthened by that position (Peterson, xxxiv). in being a woman writer in the Latter-day Saint Ulrich felt hurt when the media advertised the culture are healthful and help a believer to main- fact that she had been crossed off a list of possible tain balance in this world of dangerous extremes. speakers at BYU because of feminist hot-button This thesis has forced me to do what Anne E. issues at the time. Even though it was a relatively Goldman in “Autobiography, Ethnography, and small issue in her life, Ulrich admits that certainly History: A Model for Reading” observes in the

139 AML Annual 2004 speakers and writers she discusses. “The speakers Gagnier, Regenia. “The Literary Standard, Working- and writers considered here maneuver between auto- Class Autobiography, and Gender.” In Women, biographical and political-cultural texts, between Autobiography, Theory: A Reader, ed. Sidonie Smith ‘I’ and various forms of ‘we’” (Goldman, 290). and Julia Watson, 264–75. Madison: University of I have come to my own conclusions about impor- Wisconsin Press, 1998. tant issues in my Latter-day Saint culture. Goldman, Anne E. “Autobiography, Ethnography, and History: A Model for Reading.” In Women, Auto- My gratitude for writing and for the education biography, Theory: A Reader, 288–98. provided me by this thesis project is immense. I am Lionnet, Francoise. “The Politics and Aesthetics of happy to have learned that “both language and reli- Métissage.” In Women, Autobiography, Theory: A gion are like rivers, ‘constantly flowing from the Reader, 325–36. same source, as we respond to all that is happening Olsen, Tillie. Silences. New York: Delacorte Press, 1978. in the world around us’” (Chase, 184). I am thank- Mason, Mary. “The Other Voice: Autobiographies of ful for my writing gifts and my “faith in God, who Women Writers.” In Women, Autobiography, Theory: is eternally loving and constant” and who gives me A Reader, 321–24. courage (qtd. in Chase, 68). I will be forever Nunes, Rachel Ann. Email interview. 16 April 2001. indebted to the lives and works of the women in Peterson, Charles S. Introduction. In Quicksand and my study and thank them for the enthusiasm Cactus: A Memoir of the Southern Mormon Frontier, they ignite within me to “disturb the universe” by Juanita Brooks, Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers. (Chase, 68). 1982. Plummer, Louise. Personal interview. 27 April 2001. ———. Thoughts of a Grasshopper: Essays and Oddities. WORKS CITED Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992. Steedman, Carolyn Kay. “Stories.” In Women, Autobi- Barber, Phyllis. “The Mormon Woman as Writer.” ography, Theory: A Reader, 243–54. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23.3 (Fall Thayne, Emma Lou. Telephone interview. 9 April 2001. 1990): 108–19. Thayne, Emma Lou, and Becky Thayne-Markosian. Brooks, Juanita. Quicksand and Cactus: A Memoir of the Hope and Recovery: A Mother-Daughter Story about Southern Mormon Frontier. Salt Lake City: Howe Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia, and Manic Depression. Brothers, 1982. New York: Franklin Watts, 1992. Bushman, Claudia L. Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Ulrich, Karl. “Confessions of a Feminist’s Child.” Expo- Utah. Salt Lake City: Olympus Publishing, 1976. nent II 6.4 (1980): 18. Cannon, Elaine. As a Woman Thinketh. Salt Lake City: Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Telephone interview. 6 April Bookcraft, 1990. 2001. Chase, Carol F. Suncatcher: A Study of Madeleine L’Engle Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, and Emma Lou Thayne. All and Her Writing. Philadelphia: Innisfree Press, 1998. God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir. Salt Lake Christ, Carol P. Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writer City: Aspen Books, 1995. on Spiritual Quest. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980. Forester, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. New York: Har- court, Brace, and World, 1954.

140 Wallace Stegner’s Gathering of Zion: Creating a Mormon “Usable Past”

Jennifer Minster Asay

ost people would agree that it is less prob- Perhaps the greatest obstacle preventing the Mlematic to explain the existence of something emergence of more quality Mormon novels from than to explain its nonexistence. Retracing steps or being created is a lack of what Wallace Stegner calls events that culminate in the creation of some- a “usable past” for Mormons, which term refers to thing—be it an event from history, a work of art, the creation and existence of objective, historical or a baby—explains how something came into being. material, as well as a foundational understanding Of course, the human limitation of being able to of Mormonism by a non-Mormon audience. Steg- reflect only on time that has passed prevents us ner’s The Gathering of Zion helps in the creation of from identifying why something has not yet hap- a Mormon “usable past” by providing an equitable pened. Such is the case with the much discussed narrative history of the Mormon pioneer experi- and awaited “great Mormon novel.” There have cer- ence. In addition, Stegner’s book appeals to non- tainly been great religious novels from other faiths, Mormon readers in explaining Mormon culture and such as Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter or Chaim history in a nondidactic manner. Therefore, Mormon Potok’s My Name Is Asher Lev. Why no Mormon novelists would greatly benefit from broadening novel? Mormon history is no less interesting than their understanding of Mormon history through that found in other religions, its theology no less exposure to more objective sources, with one of the compelling and complex. Neither is Mormon cul- best sources being Stegner’s The Gathering of Zion. ture lacking in substance. A lack of defined, objective Mormon historical In the preface to Tending the Garden: Essays on foundation may be one of the main reasons a great Mormon Literature, Eugene England asserts that with novel has not yet surfaced. The many Mormon the combination of a dynamic history, ongoing and legends, folklore tales, and gospel analogies that personal revelation, and unique theology “Mormon have continuously recycled themselves between writers certainly have at hand sufficient matter Sunday School lessons and testimony meetings with which to produce a great literature.”1 Though throughout the LDS Church attest to the depth of he has little interest in the theology, Wallace Steg- story material available in Mormonism. However, ner concurs with England’s assessment of historical such material is of little use to writers if there is no abundance saying, “You can get a good deal of balanced perspective of Mormon history to give mileage out of Mormon history.”2 It becomes harder the fullest possible understanding of Mormonism to explain the absence of quality Mormon novels past and present. Some of this historical perspective when there certainly is a plethora of material from can be created only through the passage of time, which an author could draw. However, Mormon allowing documents to surface or even simply allow- authors face some real difficulties when writing ing emotionally loaded beliefs and prejudices to fiction. die with the generations who lived the history. This

141 AML Annual 2004 aspect of historical perspective is simply out of to explore the theological aspects of Catholicism, human control but slowly appears to be taking posi- rather than historical interpretation of the church, tive effect in Mormon society with the passing of her writings have been widely read and accepted most of the third- and fourth-generation pioneer by non-Catholics who have been able to take her descendants and the ever-increasing number of characters for granted due to a general understand- converts joining in the experience of Mormonism. ing of Catholicism, its culture, traditions and ritu- While part of the creation of historical per- als. Stegner points out that thus far Mormonism’s spective cannot be manipulated, a major part of “rituals don’t reverberate in the same way” Catholi- historical understanding is produced through the cism’s do.5 art of the historian. Because Mormonism, its cul- While O’Connor had several hundred years of ture and history, is not well understood by readers religious foundation for her writing, Stegner looks at large, Mormon novels tend to either lose the to the example of Nathaniel Hawthorne as a reli- non-Mormon audience or else lay a heavy, didactic gious writer who not only benefited from a histori- hand over the prose in an effort to help the non- cal religious foundation, albeit a shorter religious Mormon reader understand the context of the novel. tradition than the one O’Connor enjoyed, but con- Most writers agree that didacticism is the kiss of tributed to the establishment of a Puritan historical death for any work of fiction, because, as Stegner understanding through his own research and writ- noted, “In fiction you cannot explain . . . the social ing of his Puritan history, in such works as The background and the sociological arrangements and American Notebook and True Stories from History structures in which your peculiar people function. . . . and Biography.6 Hawthorne was able to pen his Give them [the reader] explanation and you become brightest works of religious fiction, including The a bad novelist.” He goes on to point out that in fic- Scarlet Letter, Young Goodman Brown, and The House tion readers must be able to take the characters “for of Seven Gables, because he had over two hundred granted,” but that most non-Mormon readers— years of historically detailed and documented Puri- perhaps even some Mormon readers—will not be tan history behind him, some from his own hand. able to take them for granted because of the lack of In other words, Hawthorne had access to a “usable a widespread understanding of Mormon culture past.” Stegner asserts the contribution historians and history.3 can make in preparing the way for great religious In her book A Room of One’s Own, Virginia fiction, particularly Mormon fiction: “It may be that Woolf identifies this need for a “usable past”— having produced a usable past and having explained a collectiveness of understanding among readers— Mormon society sufficiently, the historians will have in paving the way for works of great stature by laid a basis for some later novels.”7 asserting that “masterpieces are not single and soli- Though a writer of fiction by training, Stegner tary births; they are the outcome of years of think- took his function as a historian seriously and prob- ing in common, of thinking by the body of the ably did more with The Gathering of Zion to lay a people, so that the experience of the mass is behind foundation for great Mormon novels than did pre- the single voice.”4 To illustrate the need for a “usable vious Mormon fiction writers. In his essay, “‘Huts past,” Stegner compares the advantages of Catholic of Time’: Wallace Stegner’s Historical Legacy,” Rob writers to the limitations Mormon writers face in Williams points out that Stegner’s historical work writing fiction by pointing out that Catholicism was guided by his belief in four general purposes of has the benefit of centuries of ecumenical influence history: Mormonism does not enjoy. As a Catholic writer, 1. Connectivity—concerning the relationship Flannery O’Connor had the benefit of many cen- of the past with the present, turies of intriguing, complex history and well- 2. Didacticism—exploring the dilemmas and established religious society from which to form ambiguities of the past, to question and her characters. Although O’Connor’s work tends problem-solve in the present,

142 Wallace Stegner’s Gathering to Zion: Creating a “Usable Past”

3. Demythification—revealing the historical com- incident is one of dismay, with his simply saying that plexities of the past by examining beyond Harmon’s behavior “makes me think less of him than the myth and illusion, I formerly did.”10 This is the worst side the reader 4. Historicizing—showing the relationship sees of Clayton in Dahl’s biography. Contrasted with between communities and the land.8 the journal excerpts included in Stegner’s work, this Clayton appears to be indeed quite a saint. Of these four purposes, Stegner’s greatest con- Stegner’s Clayton, on the other hand, is a much tribution in his book is the demythification of the more realistic and human figure, often uninten- Mormon pioneer experience on the trail to the Salt tionally humorous with his continual complaining Lake Valley. In the introduction he talks of the of the under-appreciation of all he contributes to “stylized memory of the trail,” so closely guarded Zion. Clayton is constantly identifying people from by descendents of the pioneers, which memory his wagon train who he felt had offended him in Stegner believes was fostered not only by the Mor- some way and declaring such things as “I do not mon community at large but also the Church hier- 9 think I can ever forget him for his treatment of me,” archy. It is Stegner’s unique approach in chronicling or “Thomas Cloward has manifested feelings and the exodus west—presenting the pioneers in their conduct worse than the general run of gentiles . . . own terms, mostly through the use of journals and and for my part I shall remember [him] for some judging them in his own terms—that helps in decon- time to come.” Feeling that a member of his wagon structing some of the myth and legend surround- party has withheld quality food from him, he wirtes, ing early LDS history, particularly in revealing the “Such things seem worthy of remembrance for a humanness of the early Saints. time to come.”11 One of the most striking examples in The Gath- Besides serving the Mormon community in ering of Zion of revealing a traditionally lionized presenting a more truthful and realistic portrayal of pioneer’s humanness and frailties is that of William early pioneers, The Gathering of Zion also appeals Clayton. Best known as the composer of the Mormon to non-Mormon readers who allow themselves to anthem “Come, Come Ye Saints,” Clayton served be enlightened in the ways and history of Mormon- as a scribe for Joseph Smith and later as a secretary ism. One of the more apparent reasons for the to Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders on book’s appeal to non-Mormons, other than Stegner’s the trek west. Perhaps because people associate solid and award-winning reputation as a fiction Clayton with the composing of early hymns, he is writer, is his equitable, even-handed evaluation of generally viewed and written about in only the best the early Mormon people, their persecutions and light possible, which produces a rather flat, lifeless hardships. Stegner reveals himself to be the sympa- character. Such is the case in Paul Dahl’s book William thetic observer in the introduction of the book Clayton: Missionary, Pioneer, and Public Servant. when he acknowledges that, while he does not sub- Here the author presents a portrait of Clayton typi- scribe to the faith of the Mormons, he nonetheless cal of many biographies of Mormon pioneers: does not “doubt [the Mormon pioneers’] frequent unwavering faith, unquestioning obedience, and an devotion and heroism in its service.”12 Stegner goes uncomplaining acceptance of the trials of the trail. on to make what Charles Wilkinson found to be The closest Dahl’s Clayton comes to shattering this his “most telling observation”13 of the Mormons in guise is a reference from Clayton’s own diary con- all of The Gathering of Zion: “Their women were cerning the “roadometer” he conceived of to meas- incredible.”14 Such a statement is one way Stegner ure the distance between Missouri and the Salt Lake as a historian helps alleviate the burden of explana- Valley. In the passage, Clayton says that a Brother tion for the Mormon novelist seeking to reach the Appleton Harmon is taking credit for the inven- broadest audience possible. tion of the roadometer, although Clayton actually While establishing a more universal understand- constructed the device. Clayton’s reaction to the ing of Mormonism among non-Mormon readers

143 AML Annual 2004 can certainly do much in paving the way for greater NOTES Mormon literature, the study of objective histori- 1. Eugene England, Introduction, in Tending the cal works like Stegner’s can most aid the Mormon Garden: Essays on Mormon Literature, ed. Lavina Field- novelist in recognizing the existence of a “usable ing Anderson and Eugene England (Salt Lake City: Sig- past.” Books such as Stegner’s fill in the gaps of the nature Books, 1996), xvi. Mormon historical picture—such as the some- 2. Wallace Stegner and Richard Etulain, Conversa- times poor, but human, judgment of Church lead- tions with Wallace Stegner on Western History and Litera- ers in making critical decisions—that few writers ture (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1983), 114. recognize as being there in the first place. Mormon 3. Ibid., 116. objective history can explain the various causes and 4. Virginia Woolf, Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare, ed. dynamics of major events or situations, like the Christy Desmet and Robert Sawyer (New York: Pal- extreme suffering of the Willie and Martin hand- grave Publishers, 2001), vi. cart companies. Since the best fiction tends to 5. Stegner and Etulain, 114. emphasize character over plot, perhaps the most 6. Ibid., 116. 7. Ibid. valuable benefit derived from histories like Steg- 8. Rob Williams, “‘Huts of Time’: Wallace Stegner’s ner’s is not only a more complete picture of the Historical Legacy,” in Wallace Stegner: Man and Writer, people who contributed to the establishment of ed. Charles E. Rankin (Albuquerque: University of Mormon Zion but also a greater understanding New Mexico Press, 1996), 125. of human nature itself. 9. Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion (New In writing about the purpose of history Stegner York: McGraw-Hill, 1964; rpt. Lincoln, NB: Bison observes, “In the old days, in blizzardy weather, we Books—University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 1. used to tie a string of lariats together from house to 10. Paul Dahl, William Clayton: Missionary, Pioneer, barn so as to make it from shelter to responsibility and Public Servant (Cedar City, UT: Utah County and back again. With personal, family, and cultural Genealogical and Historical Society, 1959), 100. chores to do,” he concluded, “I think we had better 11. Stegner, 189, 188. rig up such a line between past and present.”15 In 12. Ibid., 13. the pursuit of greater Mormon fiction, both histo- 13. Charles Wilkinson, “Wallace Stegner and the Rigor of Civility,” in The Geography of Hope: A Tribute rians and writers have a responsibility to leave their to Wallace Stegner, ed. Page Stegner and Mary Stegner shelter in order to research and produce, respectively, (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996), 59. the same sympathetic, but objective historical assess- 14. Stegner, 13. ment which Stegner bequeathed to the future builders 15. Williams, 119. and beneficiaries of Mormonism’s “usable past.”

144 Telling the Truth: Teaching Creative Writing to LDS Students

Jack Harrell

ver the past four years as a creative writing reader; that writing is a rather magical, solitary Oteacher at BYU–Idaho, I’ve used textbooks occupation; and that writers are more interesting aimed at a general college audience, given assign- than other people.”1 ments common to college-level creative writing Students need to learn that the world of cre- instruction, and presented issues and standards ative writers includes, and has always included, far that would be familiar to creative writing teachers more names than those few geniuses familiar to us no matter where they teach. Most of the discus- after decades and centuries. They must learn that sions, assignments, and much of the students’ writ- good writing can be born out of ordinary ideas; ing itself has been similar to what might be found that good writers revise regularly, even excessively in creative writing classrooms anywhere, but I’ve by nonwriter standards; that good writing is not occasionally found the need for adjustments— merely a puzzle for clever English professors; that adjustments that are worthy of discussion, not just the “magic” of good writing is probably no differ- for creative writing teachers, but for anyone inter- ent than the magic of good quilting or running a ested in the advancement of Mormon letters. small business; and that sometimes just meeting one writer is enough to disabuse a person of the notion that writers are interesting people. Not So Peculiar Most creative writing students know very little Latter-day Saints like to think of themselves as “a about contemporary poetry, fiction, drama, or cre- peculiar people” (1 Pet. 2:9), but I suspect that the ative nonfiction—at least the kind English teachers rules of aesthetics and craftsmanship are no recognize as legitimate. There is clearly a popular respecter of persons. When it comes to creative literary dichotomy that is second nature to most writing students—LDS or not—the most obvious English professors and almost entirely unrecognized commonality is their shared belief in what might by everyone else, including most students. A stu- be called the myth of the writer. Wendy Bishop, in dent with a great love for the writings of J. R. R. her book Released into Language, has defined some Tolkien, Jane Austen, or even John Grisham may of the elements of this myth, a myth that misrepre- be dismayed when handed the latest edition of Best sents both writers and the writing process. She says American Short Stories. Latter-day Saint students are students often believe that “creative writing is no different. something done by a few geniuses; that good writ- ing proceeds inevitably from good ideas; that good writers compose nearly perfect drafts, often at a Telling the Truth single sitting; that writers pack one overriding theme So what is it that makes LDS creative writing stu- into a text to be construed later by a well-trained dents different? The answer to that question falls

145 AML Annual 2004 under an interestingly ironic heading: the struggle Giant Joshua, a book published by Houghton Mifflin to tell the truth. Stephen King gives this advice to in 1941. Whipple’s book received positive national new writers: “So okay—there you are in your room attention but harsh criticism from Latter-day Saints. with the shade down and the door shut and the Partially due to the local response, she never wrote plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You’ve again.5 Speaking of this phenomenon, the under- blown up your TV and committed yourself to a standable fear of telling the truth, Lerner says of thousand words a day, come hell or high water. her own experience in an MFA program: “I was Now comes the big question: What are you going terrified for anyone—most of all myself—to dis- to write about? And the equally big answer: Any- cover what my dark heart harbored. You see, I was thing you damn well want. Anything at all . . . as a good child. And I was heavily interested in being a long as you tell the truth.”2 good, achieving daughter. So you can imagine how No matter whether the genre is fiction, poetry, terrifying it was when I first took my teacher’s essay, or drama, people want to read the truth. Pigs advice and finally stopped writing incomprehen- can fly, space aliens can attack the earth, and the sible poems and wrote some pieces that even my devil can speak to corporate executives—anything parents could understand.”6 at all can happen—as long as the reader can main- I call what Lerner is discussing here “the good tain the “willing suspension of disbelief.”3 Any- daughter syndrome,” but certainly LDS sons are thing else, for the reader, is a lie. When the reader just as concerned as daughters about exhibiting “the can no longer sustain the willing suspension of dis- appearance of” goodness. Lerner goes on to say: belief, the writer is sunk. Reality has something to “Let’s face it, if in your writing you lift the veil on do with it, but realism doesn’t account for every- your family, your community, or even just yourself, thing. If the audience starts to suspect that they are someone will take offense. . . . If you write what is being lied to, the contract between the writer and most pressing, you are revealing thoughts, secrets, the reader is broken. But this kind of honesty wishes, and fantasies that you (and we as readers) comes with a price that both the writer and reader would never otherwise confess to.”7 Furthermore, must pay, a price that some Latter-day Saints at she says: times may be unwilling to pay. “Most writers, like most children, need to tell. Betsy Lerner, in her book The Forest for the The problem is that much of what they need to Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers, talks about the tell will provoke the ire of parent-critics, who risks that come with telling the truth. Lerner, who are determined to tell writer-children what is a New York literary agent and a former executive they can and cannot say. Unless you have suffi- editor at Doubleday, says readers are attracted to cient ego and feel entitled to tell your story, novels, poems, and stories because they tell the truths you will be stymied in your effort to create. that so few dare to bring to light. Our ordinary, You think you can’t write, but the truth is you can’t tell. Writing is nothing if not breaking the workaday relationships are often very superficial. silence. The problem is, no one likes a snitch.”8 Even within families we keep hidden so much that is deep and real, but this doesn’t calm our hunger Let’s say an LDS student, a young man, has a for the truth or our thirst for genuine intimacy. brother who comes home early from his mission. This desire for depth and truth makes us read. But The brother announces that he’s gay and moves in writers who bring the truth forward are often pun- with another former missionary, who’s also gay. ished for their honesty. Lerner mentions specifi- Then let’s say the student is compelled to base a cally Phillip Roth, a Jewish writer who was openly short story on this experience. If he’s honest, he’ll accused of anti-Semitism when his story “Defender write that story. Not only will he be unafraid to of the Faith” was published in 1959.4 In Mormon face and reveal the truth of the matter in his own culture, we might think of Maurine Whipple and soul, but he’ll also know when to break from “what the local reaction she received for her book The really happened” and fictionalize in places where

146 Telling the Truth: Teaching Creative Writing to LDS Students doing so will make the story more pure and true to Here are three short answers to a very compli- its own purpose. At this point we say, “Good for cated question. First, writers should tell the truth. him! He’s telling the truth.” “We believe in being If they don’t have the guts to tell the truth, they honest,” the thirteenth Article of Faith says. should stand aside and let someone else do it; this But what if, in the process of writing, he begins is nobler than softening or falsifying the truth. And to fear that the story might shed a bad light on finally, if readers don’t want the truth, don’t tell him, his family, and possibly even the Church. The them. (Even Christ couched the truth in parables.) latter is no small thing for many LDS writers. If a But don’t tell lies, either. Telling the truth to people person believes that The Church of Jesus Christ of who don’t want it is probably uncharitable and cer- Latter-day Saints is God’s church on the earth, the tainly a waste of time. question of implicating the Church in one’s writ- When LDS students are told to tell the truth, ing becomes very significant. A writer who believes they may misinterpret that as a directive to be doc- in telling the truth, but also believes in the divinity trinaire instead. To put this in perspective, we of the Church, understandably will be troubled should realize that religious writers are not the only about tainting the image of the Church with the ones who might be tempted to write propaganda— sins of fictional characters. Possibly, LDS writers the promotion of specific doctrines or causes. A and writing teachers would do well to emphasis the devout feminist writing about the men in her fam- distinction between “the Church” as the members ily, a gay person writing about homophobia, a themselves—one would be naïve to think of them Marxist writing about American materialism, an as “spotless”—and “the gospel” as the divinely ex-Mormon writing about hypocrisy in the Church, revealed path of redemption. or a loyal LDS student writing about the nobility Nonetheless, when the question arises of bring- of the priesthood—all may run the risk of writing ing vulgarity, sex, and violence into one’s writing, in order to prove the validity of their cause, rather LDS students are understandably self-conscious. than writing to explore the conflicts that move real The issue of vulgar language is especially problem- people with real, individual struggles. As John atic. Interestingly, students are not as worried about Gardner says, “The artist who begins with a doc- depicting violence. A gory description of a stab- trine to promulgate, instead of a rabble multitude bing, for example, is seen as being in poor taste, or of ideas and emotions, is beaten before he starts.”9 simply as being “gross”; it isn’t necessarily seen as a Most human beings are more complex, more moral issue. Interestingly, the moral weight of killing self-contradictory, and ultimately more interesting, a fictional character goes unnoticed by most LDS loveable, and even admirable than any political or student writers in my experience. By contrast, they religious system. Good literature may use religious, brood over the decision of whether or not to let a social, and political categories as setting, or it may character say a common cuss word when he smashes use them to introduce conflict, but good literature his knuckle on a bolt. The real issue here may be ultimately transcends those systems. What Faulkner how the writer views the audience and what he calls “the human heart in conflict with itself”10 is believes they expect of him. If the character is a always more complicated and compelling than crusty old truck driver, the student knows what the social and religious systems alone. That’s why a man will probably say. The question is, does one novel that says “all Mormons are hypocrites” is just tell the truth and risk offending by doing so? If the as bad as a novel that says “all Mormons are good.” truck driver says “darn,” the reader may not buy it. Student writers must learn to move beyond In that case, the writer has offended the reader by clichés, stereotypes, and propaganda. They must not telling the truth. The dilemma for the writer is learn to see more clearly, and they must learn to see a version of the “Do I look fat in this dress?” ques- for themselves, looking past labels and categories, tion. It’s all about audience: what portion of the past commonly held beliefs, to discover their own truth do they want to hear? insights.

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One of my colleagues at BYU–Idaho, David account for it. People who think they have all the Ward, says that too often in the Church we engage answers do not need anything new. Repetition is in what he calls “the rhetoric of information.” We fine for the church meeting until we can master know Church history. We know the scriptures. those simple principles we’ve been told a thousand We know the doctrine. We know the facts (at least times. But for art, it’s got to be new. Even an old we think we know them). All this tempts us to story must be told in a new way if it’s going to cap- believe that there is no more new knowledge; writ- ture an audience. And we won’t have anything new ers must simply restate, rehash, and redistribute if we think we already have it all. the “information” we already have. By contrast, David Ward says, we seldom find ourselves engaged in “the rhetoric of insight”—rhetoric which reveals Not Afraid of Believing the new discoveries that seeking souls encounter. So there are cautions to consider when teaching The rhetoric of insight can be born out through LDS creative writing students, but to their credit, writing and research, perceptions given by the they do have a lot to offer in the classroom. First of Spirit, or simply new knowledge as a result of all, they have a pretty good work ethic. Once they thinking for ourselves. are disabused of the notion that writing is a mysti- Opportunities for insight are all around us, but cal experience in which the muses dictate what one our categories and labels are so strong that we is to write, they are easily convinced of the need to sometimes can’t see without them. Janine Gilbert, work hard, even if they don’t do it. who wrote the screenplay adapting the popular Because of the way the Church reinforces con- Mormon novel Charly to film, has told me that in nections with others through diverse activities, the process of writing she realized that all stories LDS student writers are less likely to bury them- about Mormon characters for Mormon audiences selves in their writing to the neglect of everything are essentially adaptations, because Mormons already else. They are less likely to numb themselves with believe they know how other Mormons should substance abuse. They are less likely to believe that behave. Thus they come to the story with certain exclusive immersion into the self will awaken them expectations. They know how the story should end to the struggles of the human condition. Writers before it begins. But this attitude has a stifling who sacrifice faith, family, and friends, whatever effect on the creative spirit. John Bradshaw notes their religion may be, risk losing their connection that Richard Bandler suggested that with God and others—two sources of constant fuel one of the major blocks to creativity [is] the for the writer’s imagination. Working with people feeling of knowing you are right. When we one wouldn’t always associate with (as is common think we are absolutely right, we stop seeking in the Church and the family) is invaluable to a new information. To be right is to be certain, writer’s deepening understanding of human char- and to be certain stops us from being curious. acter. Family life especially brings out the best and Curiosity and wonder are at the heart of all worst in people. People in their extremities are learning. . . . So the feeling of absolute cer- more honest and are, therefore, better subjects for tainty and righteousness causes us to stop seek- the writer’s observation. Of course, one doesn’t ing and to stop learning.11 have to be LDS for this to happen. The good news The desire to write begins in wonder, too. The for Latter-day Saint writers is that the connections writer is struck by something within, or without, the Church advocates can help, as long as the captured by something that is beautiful, puzzling, writer’s religion is an open and healthy interaction or profound. Whatever it is, it’s something that with others. A religion of politeness and dutiful can’t be accounted for, that can’t be comprehended conduct will never benefit the writer. by familiar descriptions, systems, or experiences. It Another advantage LDS creative writing stu- is “new,” and something new must be written to dents have is that they aren’t afraid to believe in

148 Telling the Truth: Teaching Creative Writing to LDS Students nobility, truth, beauty, and good work. Latter-day be good. But writers need maturity. They need the Saints are generally a believing people. This works kind of maturity that comes from surviving success to their advantage as writers, since writing is always and failure, from finding sin and weakness in an act of faith. One must believe in order to under- themselves as well as others, from seeing that life’s take a writing project, because writing always takes problems are always more complex than the solu- much more work than one thinks at the outset. tions they were taught as children. I have friends Think of the faith needed to believe that one could who believe that Mormon culture does very little ever have what it takes to write something that to engender this kind of emotional maturity. others will read and love. Think again of the faith When I go to the local LDS bookstore, I see evi- it takes to trust language itself, to forge ahead with dence that they may be right. an assurance that language, with all of its slippery On the shelves of my LDS bookstore I find signifiers, will carry one past all the personal and cul- plenty of books for children and adolescents. And tural differences between oneself and one’s readers, that’s fine. I’m very grateful for the number of good past all the other static in your readers’ lives, and books available to my own children—everything actually go to the heart. And furthermore, think of from Dr. Seuss to Lemony Snicket. Non-Mormon the faith it takes to write that first word, knowing writers are doing an excellent job of producing lit- that the market is governed at least as much by the erature for children and adolescents that captures rules of business as the rules of aesthetics. their imagination, engenders a love for reading, LDS student writers know something else that and teaches them within traditional moral values. is valuable, too. They know there is something in I say, let our children read Newberry and Caldecott the universe that is greater than themselves and Award winning books. So far, there’s not an LDS their writing: they know there is a God. Writing to writer or publisher that can do better. a recently converted friend, Flannery O’Connor But what is there for adults at an LDS book- said this in response to her friend’s fear that becom- store? Romance novels for women, and doctrinal ing a Catholic—becoming a believer—would stifle books for men. Interestingly, both of these genres her creative power: “I doubt if your interests get are prescriptive. Both involve writing that knows less intellectual as you become more deeply involved its end before it begins. Both involve the giving of in the Church, but what will happen is that the rules. Fictional genres like romance rely on forms intellect will take its place in a larger context and that prescribe the creation of characters, conflicts, will cease to be tyrannical, if it has been—and when and outcomes. Doctrinal books are didactic in their there is nothing over the intellect it usually is very purpose. They rely on commonly accepted tyrannical.”12 interpretations of history, doctrine, and scripture. This business of putting oneself and one’s writ- I don’t doubt that there is an appropriate place for ing “in its place” is, paradoxically, a part of elevating both of these genres, but I also sense that they do the purpose and meaning of the work. One’s writ- very little to encourage the development of spiri- ing becomes greater when it is subordinated, not to tual and emotional maturity in their readers. They a political or institutional agenda, but to the quest rely on form and authority. to touch something higher—like God. Certainly some books need to cover the basics, introducing new converts and the youth to foun- dational principles. It may, in fact, be the appro- Writing for Adults priate responsibility of the official Church to be Novelist Wallace Stegner once said, “Young writers repetitive. It may be inappropriate for the official should be encouraged to write, and discouraged Church to go beyond that, because, as the LDS from thinking they are writers.”13 Unlike Olympic scripture says, “it is not meet that I [God] should athletes and rock stars, the twenty-year-old writer command in all things; for he that is compelled is rarely better than the writer at thirty, forty, or in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise even fifty. Zeal can be good. Youthful energy can servant” (D&C 58:26).

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Could it be that God has consistently seen to 3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biogragphia Literaria, the repetition of the basics through his official in Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. H. J. Jackson (1817; church, but at the same time has been waiting for Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 314. the rest of us to spread our wings, to ask questions 4. Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s and faithfully seek answers, to invite personal reve- Advice to Writers (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001), 49. lation, to explore art and expression that is new? 5. Eugene England, “Whipple’s The Giant Joshua: A Literary History of Mormonism’s Best Historical Fic- Could it be that God is waiting on us? Possibly the tion” (unpublished essay, Brigham Young University, recent upsurge of LDS writing and film are only n.d.), 7–8. the beginning of the flowering that President 6. Lerner, 62. Spencer W. Kimball spoke of in his landmark mes- 7. Ibid., 50–51. sage, “A Gospel Vision of the Arts.”14 If this is so, 8. Ibid., 58. LDS creative writing students are the ones who 9. John Gardner, On Moral Fiction (1978; New York: need to learn the relationship between questioning Basic Books, 2000), 14. and faith, art and religion, humanity and divinity. 10. William Faulkner, “Nobel Prize Acceptance They need to learn to tell the whole truth, not just Speech,” http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1949 the propaganda, without losing that faith in God /faulkner-speech.html, accessed 21 November 2002. and goodness that can bolster them while they 11. Richard Bandler, cited in John Bradshaw, Heal- grapple in the conflict with despair, corruption, ing the Shame That Binds You (Deerfield Beach, FL: hatred, and futility. Ultimately, they need to con- Health Communications), 8–9. 12. Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being, ed. tinue to work and believe that humanity—as the Sally Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, children of God—are worth the effort of art, just 1979), 134. as they are worth the effort of salvation. 13. Wallace Stegner, On the Teaching of Creative Writing: Responses to a Series of Questions, ed. E. C. Lathan (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, NOTES 1988), 20. 1. Wendy Bishop, Released into Langauge: Options 14. Spencer W. Kimball, “The Gospel Vision of the for Teaching Creative Writing, 2nd ed. (Portland: Calen- Arts,” Ensign 7 (July 1977): 3–5. dar Island, 1998), 2. 2. Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (New York: Pocket Books, 2000), 153.

150 Tradition and Cultural Shaping of Utah Valley LDS Women

Jacqueline S. Thursby

his is an essay voiced from my personal per- forty years. I enjoy my membership and in this essay Tspective and research. The LDS women with discussing local LDS women, I hope to be more of whom I most frequently interact represent only a an observer than a critic. I am no Pollyanna, but tiny demographic slice of the women of Utah, and being positive has served me well over time, and they are women professors, female university stu- that attitude seems to be in harmony with Presi- dents, women in my ward, and women in my fam- dent Gordon B. Hinckley. In his book Standing for ily. I moved here nearly seven years ago (St. Louis, Something, he states: Missouri, is my original home) to accept a faculty My plea is that we stop seeking out the position in the English Department of Brigham storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am Young University and am a folklorist and cultural suggesting that as we go through life, we ethnographer who teaches a variety of courses. “accentuate the positive.” I am asking that we One of my earliest research projects here was in look a little deeper for the good, that we still response to an invitation by the American Associa- our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more tion of Cemetery and Gravestone Studies to pres- generously compliment and endorse virtue and ent research on polygamist burial sites. Material effort. (Hinckley, 99) culture is part of my academic spectrum, and that Criticism and pessimism destroy families, research led to an interesting find which I consid- undermine institutions of all kinds, defeat nearly ered a telling commentary on LDS women of the everyone, and spread a shroud of gloom over last century. In the Provo Cemetery stands a mon- entire nations. We must resist partaking of the ument to a wife that carries her epitaph, “You are spirit of our times. We need rather to look for going to miss me when I’m gone.” the good all about us. There is so much that is “Yes,” I thought, “from what I’ve learned about sweet and decent and good upon which to LDS women, I’m sure you were right.” The con- build. Above and beyond the negative, the criti- cal, the cynical, and the doubtful, we can and cept of polygamy has never particularly interested must learn to look to the positive and the affir- me, but I have heard it mentioned so many times mative. (106–7) in my years here that I began to realize its subtle influence in everyday LDS culture. The woman During life difficulties, which all humans obvi- whose epitaph I have quoted was a second wife, ously face at one time or another, it is reasonable to but not a plural wife. find, or be helped to find, a positive perspective The following discussion continues in the form and respond accordingly. That isn’t easy, but it is of a personal essay but also includes academic research. the only way to guarantee an understandable and I am a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of endurable consequence. We are required to negoti- Latter-day Saints and have been a member for over ate our space and our relationships to make them

151 AML Annual 2004 as workable and productive as possible. By my simple I am told, “in Utah it is Seven Brides for one immersion in a baptismal font so many years ago, brother!” As I see it, contemporary LDS culture, I gained sisters socialized in a culture that I had especially in the West, is bounded on one side by never known before. From the beginning of my the heritage of practices that were required for church membership, my direction has been to many Saints before, and bounded on the other by emulate the best of what I could observe and learn. the veil that leads to a spiritual realm where the After finding the delightful comment on the monu- practice will be in effect once again. Isaiah 4:1 ment, I turned to a broad study of journals, histories states: “And in that day seven women shall take (both academic and nonacademic), and interviews hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own considering the historical context and experiences bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be of past Utah women. Women were generous in shar- called by thy name, to take away our reproach.” ing information of their grandmothers and great- I see a connection in the feminine self-presentation grandmothers. Even descendants of the “epitaph and dignity some of today’s LDS women of the lady” were willing to share information with me. It Intermountain West and this reflected collective was revealing to examine the cultural and character memory. There is pride in the choices made over a formation of these sincere and often well-educated hundred years ago, and part of the honor these women of the Church, both past and present, who women demonstrate for their ancestors is reflected adhered to the faith. It is important to remember, in their understanding and choices of today. The I think, that now only about ten percent of all mem- concept of the pioneer grandmother shapes, or at bers of the Church reside in the Intermountain least influences, many middle-aged and older LDS West (Hart, 2), yet the influence of the Utah/Idaho women. Younger LDS women in Utah speak pas- LDS culture seems to touch and shape members all sionately of other types of social and cultural pres- over the world. My questions have centered around sures that have shaped them, and I will include their cultural shaping here in Utah. What defines some of those in this discussion. them? And, of course, I have learned that there is What are these contemporary Mormon women no simple answer to that question. really about? I think this group is somewhat mis- Many Utah LDS women are descendants of understood from the outside and too often even nineteenth-century polygamy. They make no par- within itself. I have become sensitized to percep- ticular effort to hide that, nor should they. Rather, tions by outsiders in part due to recent sensational though many LDS women, over time, have told news coverage concerning Utah polygamy cases. me that they are relieved not to be required to prac- For instance, stories about Tom Greene and his tice plural marriage, these same women take pride wives have been in newspapers from Salt Lake City in the stalwart fortitude of their pioneer grand- to London to Frankfort. Though those incidents mothers. These were grandmothers who abided here occurred among non-LDS people who loosely the covenant they made by choice and remained call themselves “Mormons,” there is categorical con- steadfast in their belief in the restoration and faith fusion about us in national and international rep- in the gospel until their deaths (Taylor, Clarke, resentation. Even my own non-LDS mother in interviews, 13, 14 October 1997). Missouri asked me for an explanation of these The reality of history impacts choices and reports. Those born in the Church and those who behaviors in the present, and the conceptual pres- convert to it share a rich pioneering history. This ence of polygamy in this culture, though not prac- belief system was founded and built on the legacy ticed or even frequently mentioned, is understood, of those who sacrificed much to establish “a society accepted, and a genuine part of the collective con- ready-made, a society that would not shift with sciousness of many, if not most, Intermountain every passing breeze,” as stated in Maurine LDS women. How many times have I heard the Whipple’s The Giant Joshua, a semihistorical novel quip about Seven Brides for Steven Brothers? “No,” centered on the founding of St. George, Utah

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(Whipple, 474). Some LDS women seem to be com- immediately with a chuckle and then asked if I fortable with that concept, but others push against intended to bear children through time and all it and find it altogether stifling. For most, at least eternity. I replied that if I did, it would be my in the valley where I live, contemporary beliefs and choice. Some of my graduate students and I have actions reflect the heritage. Elaine Jack explained, talked to contemporary Latter-day Saint women to in an essay called “Read . . . One to Another”: gather their perceptions about who they think they The gospel is a plan whereby we learn to are and what they think shaped them most socially become like God. We have textbooks that are and culturally. The operative questions for the divine and the Holy Spirit as our tutor. The most part were, What is a Mormon woman? What intellect, like testimony, is not worn out when do you think was most important in your own cul- we use it. Engaged, it thrives on the stimulus of tural shaping as an LDS woman in Intermountain learning new and different things, analyzing, Utah? Two of the women I visited with about this, processing, storing, and recalling. “Let the solem- both in their late forties, expressed positive responses. nities of eternity rest upon your minds” (D&C Marilyn E., in personal conversation with me 43:34) is a reminder to take seriously the (9 February 2003), said, “I didn’t grow up here, opportunity to continue to learn and grow. (9) but in the years I’ve been here, I’ve been most Certainly, our own quest for education and influenced by the closeness, maybe because of the information shapes and molds us into sisters, close living space, of LDS neighborhoods. I’ve wives, and mothers in Zion, but popular cultural learned what service is; I’ve served and been influences and tightly constructed fears and taboos served.” Another sister said, “I feel that there is a restrict some LDS women’s understanding. Mis- lot of goodness here; I guess you would have to call conceptions strangle the hope for some of ever it love. I moved here when I was a child, I grew up coming to peace with Gospel ideals. Many of our in this neighborhood, and I’ve always felt a part of young, and not so young, women have been caught everything” (Virginia S., conversation, 9 February up in the so-called fashionable trends and self- 2003). presentations of the world. Confused about I presented this paper at “The Women’s Studies healthy attitudes and blaming the LDS ideal of Colloquium Lecture Series” at BYU on 13 Febru- striving toward perfection, it has been pointed out ary 2003, and Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill asked after- to me by a young BYU instructor (female) that wards if any of the women interviewed mentioned “many” have become victims of unhealthy eating being shaped by their patriarchal blessings. That was attitudes, anorexia and bulimia, because the “guys an excellent question, and in all of the interviews want the girls skinny.” These are tragic but treat- my students and I have conducted, I don’t remem- able conditions that, in my opinion, must be ber that ever being mentioned. Professor Ballif- addressed on an individual basis. Both genders need Spanvill also asked what I thought the three most to recognize that our influential media is driven by salient cultural shaping elements were. I answered economics, and imaging women (as size 6 or simply that I thought they might be having enough faith not all right) is a tool of Satan. It demeans, distorts, to live in obedience to gospel principles, keeping and degrades women, and men, to have physical the covenants of baptism and the temple, and size, hair color, and looks determine self-worth at appropriate self-presentation. It may be, though, any age. that those are my three most salient points. We are also shaped by the words of non- Later that same day, I asked a class of upper Mormon people living in the Western states who division undergraduates, women and men, what often hold benign, but somewhat distorted, opin- they felt shaped them culturally (English 356: Myth, ions about Mormon (or LDS) women. When I Legend, Folktale, 13 February 2003), and asked told one of my graduate school professors in them to keep the comments as honest and positive Logan, Utah, that I was a Mormon, he responded as possible. Their responses were interesting and

153 AML Annual 2004 provocative (but not entirely positive). The follow- LDS women have embraced with certainty and ing is the list brainstormed that day: absoluteness. 1. Family traditions The following discussion will examine my per- ceptions of a few historical elements that seem to 2. Growing up in the mission field (Babylon), have influenced the cultural shaping of contem- where there weren’t many LDS, and then porary Latter-day Saint women, at least in Utah. moving here for school where everyone is Sources for the work include voices from contem- LDS really has an impact on people. The porary conversations and informal interviews, culture is less accepting of difference here. journals, diaries, church records, and published per- 3. We are sort of shaped by the “motherhood sonal and professionally written histories. The dis- cult.” cussion ranges lightly over about one hundred 4. Cultural perfection: baking bread, no brownie fifty years, and it occasionally moves backward and mix, all foods from scratch and looking per- forward in time to demonstrate what I perceive to fect all of the time. be long-lasting behavioral influences. No interpre- 5. Striving for excellence with the opposite sex tation can possess all truth, but I have hoped to constantly. find some illuminating threads in what I’ve gathered for this work. We are all shaped by many influ- 6. I think striving for perfection has made me ences, and a narrative of any kind has multiple want to be constantly improving. I think meanings and speaks to different levels of thought that is good. and knowledge. My intention has not been to “gloss 7. Striving for excellence in everything includ- over” significant historical occurrences, but rather ing extracurricular activities. I have been to include them as markers in the collective mem- shaped into being tired. ory of contemporary LDS women in Utah. The 8. The “fake happy” thing has shaped my out- historical events mentioned are topics I have heard ward appearance, but I feel frustrated by that. mentioned since moving here; and, as I have stated 9. Pressure to marry has made me not want to above, my association has been limited mostly to a marry yet, and that is an unusual cultural circle of “active” LDS women. attitude at BYU. There is even more pres- sure to marry when a girl returns home from 1830–1849 a mission. I am not sure if that is positive or negative; that is just the way it is. Early converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came from the United States and Contemporary Latter-day Saint women in the Canada, as well as from Europe. Embracing a com- Intermountain West are as varied as any group. mon belief system and the newly established They represent all socio-economic levels; they are American civil union, they often syncretized their of all shapes, colors, ethnic groups, and personali- traditions, keeping the best of what had meaning ties; their regional, cultural, social, political, and to them, and invented new social and cultural educational experiences are varied; and like women milieus. The Latter-day Saint people, often misun- of any American group, they are single, married, derstood and persecuted for their peculiar beliefs, divorced, or widowed. One of the commonalities moved from place to place and state to state in LDS women do share is a strong belief in what their early history and ultimately underwent a is called in the church vernacular “free agency”— diaspora (scattering) at the time they were forced that is, the unalienable right to make choices to vacate their Illinois settlement in Nauvoo. The according to the dictates of one’s own conscience. early female converts, however, were instrumental That is a valuable prerogative and, since the found- in establishing and reestablishing standards of civi- ing of the Church in 1830, certainly one that the lized behavior on the frontier of early America

154 Tradition and Cultural Shaping of Utah Valley LDS Women whether in the early days of mosquito-infested not be our guide—that as daughters of Zion, Nauvoo, in tents during the cruel winters of we should set an example for all the world. 1846–47, or in the newly found settlements in Salt (Nauvoo Minutes, 17 March 1842, qtd. in Derr, Lake and the surrounding region. As the following Cannon, and Beecher, 27) pages unfold, readers will discover, as I did, the Emma, who maintained grave concerns about the iron will of these women who believed that they concept of polygamy, was one of the founders and had covenanted to yield their divinely appointed charter members of the Relief Society in the begin- free agency to the will of God and that the will of ning, and later Emma was credited with (or held God was to be revealed and administered through responsible for) breaking up that same group. Eliza the authority of the male priesthood leadership of Snow revealed that her beloved sister in the gospel, the Church. Emma, disbanded the Nauvoo Relief Society. Eliza The son of Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith Sr., told a group of Relief Society sisters in Utah in Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus 1868, “Emma Smith gave it up so as not to lead the Christ of Latter-day Saints, courted and married society in erro[r]” (West Jordan Ward, Salt Lake Emma Hale, “a tall and attractive 21-year-old” Stake, Relief Society Minutes, 7 September 1868, (Givens, 18) in 1836. In a way, Emma became the qtd. in Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, 62). This first female model of LDS refinement and proud, devoted wife, a woman of wisdom who was endurance for the many Mormon women who referred to in revelation as “an elect lady” (D&C followed. A young teacher and a strong, intelligent 25:3), remained in Nauvoo when the Latter-day woman in her own right, she performed as a sup- Saints escaped to the West in February 1846. In portive wife in roles that ranged from careful scribe part because of the scripture, in part because of to gracious hostess to devoted mother and home- known history, her memory lingers in the con- maker for Joseph and their children. In spite of sciousness of the women of the Church, and her accusations, persecutions, and various incarcera- example as a noble and devoted wife of the Prophet tions that her husband endured before his assassi- has assured her a continual place of respect and nation, she stood firmly by his side and sustained honor. My impression is that women of today are his decisions, except for one: Emma intensely much more tolerant of Emma’s choices than most opposed the concept of plural marriage that Joseph of Emma’s contemporaries. Her body lies interred had received through divine revelation. next to her martyred husband in a family plot in Like other women of her time, Emma had the Nauvoo. Though her name is seldom mentioned energy and desire to reach out in charity beyond by Utah women, she is remembered as a woman of her family. In the early to mid-1800s, women’s dignity and long suffering, a genteel, pioneer charitable groups, often labeled “benevolent move- woman who supported her husband until his ments,” were popular in the United States; groups untimely death. met regularly and sought to provide various kinds Other pioneer LDS women are held in high of Christian service. The Latter-day Saint women esteem and have been celebrated by their numer- hoped to have their own official ladies’ society and ous descendants. Personal journals and records of sought approval from the Prophet Joseph Smith. the Church represent these early female members When permission was granted, Emma was present as hard-working women of sacrifice and generosity as a leader at the organization of the women’s who struggled to maintain the genteel refinements Relief Society in the upstairs room of Smith’s store of the East in spite of poverty and fear. Looking on 17 March 1842: back over time and space, it must be remembered At that meeting several women remarked that that these were women who not only faced hard- the new institution should differ from other ships and the death of loved ones as they moved benevolent societies, Eliza R. Snow declaring from Kirtland, to Missouri, and then to Nauvoo, “that the popular Institutions of the day should but they subsequently crossed the plains from

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Winter Quarters, Nebraska, to the Salt Lake Valley. generation of willing LDS women that part of These women became exiles from the United their honor and dignity comes from performing States and, with unwavering faith, were among the simple, selfless acts. first party of pioneers to enter that valley in 1847. Dumped from their wagons along the trail were precious objects too heavy to keep. More precious 1849–1875 even than those possessions, countless children and The following is a brief view of two areas of settle- elderly family members were also lost and buried ment in early Utah: Salt Lake City and St. George. along the way. Those women who survived, many It is important to consider what the early female of whom had become plural wives, defended their pioneers thought and passed along to their daugh- position and looked forward to establishing a sanc- ters and granddaughters in addition to acknowl- tuary, a safe place, beyond the borders of the edging the heavy physical duties placed on them to United States. ensure survival. I believe these attitudes and com- One of the ways leaders of the young women’s mitments determined among the women then are programs of the Church help to transmit the mem- still present and dynamic within the sisterhood of ory (and reality) of these early pioneers is by taking LDS women today. them for handcart trail re-enactments. The sacrifice Last summer my granddaughters and I visited and hardships of the early settlers are greatly Pioneer Village in Salt Lake City. We toured admired, appropriately so, I think, and the young Brigham Young’s summer home and were amused women are given, in some stakes, a sort of rite-of- there by what the guide called the “Deseret cos- passage to help them embrace and remember their tume.” The girls, both nine, giggled and asked, heritage. On the other hand, taking the youngest “Grandma, did they really dress like that?” I said young women’s group, the Beehives, to bridal shops that I didn’t think so, but I later came across a for a day of Cinderella magic, I believe, is counter- passage in Women of the Covenant that illuminated productive. In my mind that leads to unnecessary the reality of that costume. The Eastern fashion at disappointment if Prince Charming doesn’t show that time was the tightly corseted look, which was up before the girls reach twenty. There are positives considered expensive and unhealthy. So local LDS and negatives to negotiate in their social and cul- women designed the Deseret costume consisting of tural shaping. a “loose-fitting, high collared blouse, full skirt One of the legacies from this vast group of pio- about mid-calf in length, and full pantaloons to neer laborers is the charitable work ethic that the ankle” (Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, 71 ). Eliza abounds among the sisters in the contemporary Snow, who modeled the outfit publicly, continued LDS Church. “Charity Never Faileth” (1 Cor. to dress (according to an early picture) in the East- 13:8) is the motto of the Relief Society, and I have ern fashion. Women of the Covenant goes on to participated in and observed the humanitarian state: “For all their spinning and weaving of home- efforts of the women on both large and small grown fibers, the wearing of eastern goods and scales. Charitable acts such as making blankets, styles, at least for Sunday best, was a statement of assembling personal care kits, and preparing meals gentility that women of the Mormon frontier for the ill and needy are performed in quantities made, and would continue to make, despite the beyond counting. Group efforts undertaken by difficulty of their wilderness lives” (Beecher, 286, large assemblies of women who attend the yearly in Derr, Cannon, andBeecher, 71). Relief Society Women’s Conference at Brigham Over the decades that I have been a member of Young University are nothing less than phenome- the Church, I have observed a simple dignity in the nal in what they organize and turn out. This char- self-presentation of most Latter-day Saint women itable ethic is a cultural shaping from the past, and and their daughters. Financial resources vary, of it continues to impress upon generation after course, but the women and girls are encouraged by

156 Tradition and Cultural Shaping of Utah Valley LDS Women tradition and training to dress modestly and main- entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, tain excellent grooming standards. As mentioned not their harsh censure—and the man that above, some seem confused by the fashion trends marries sixty of them has done a deed of open- of the day, but for the most part this cultural prac- handed generosity so sublime that the nations tice of attractive self-presentation is a manifestation should stand uncovered in his presence and of the worth and esteem the LDS women expect of worship in silence. (Twain, 138) themselves. Long ago one of my children’s kinder- Regardless of literary satire and governmental garten teachers remarked in a general conversation duress (including the antipolygamist Morrill Act of we were having about the Mormons and the 1862), Young’s home was said to be one of domes- Church: “I think the most beautiful women in this tic peace, and “his wives and children shared a love country come from Utah. There is something for each other that cannot be explained” (Carter, about those Mormon women.” Collectively and 11). It is noteworthy to mention that descendants consciously, I believe, the LDS women know they of Young and of many other polygamous unions are representative spiritual daughters of a very real carry their inherited legacy with pride, not embar- God. They know, too, the sacrifice their progeni- rassment or shame. Elizabeth Kane, in her journal, tors have made to enable them to live their religion A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie, 1872–73, with dignity and impunity. They continue to remarked that “the Mormons do not say ‘one of my honor their dead both inside the temple through wives,’ but ‘my wife,’ I still imagine there is but one” the work done there and outside of the temple by (Kane, 3). Perhaps it was this display of respect that representing their ancestors with grace and modesty. some husbands practiced that left a legacy of pride The principle of plural marriage was fully in in so many. There are numerous folk stories and effect during this twenty-six-year period (1849 to jokes about polygamous families in Utah, but the 1875). Criticism abounded, and Brigham Young and reality was often a devout sense of obedience and a his wives were targeted. There were tirades from serious struggle for survival. This, too, is a part of Protestant ministers, the LDS were misrepresented the cultural shaping of contemporary Intermoun- in popular novels, and they were the butt of taste- tain LDS women. less jokes and cartoons generated by outsiders who Each woman lives, grows, and is then trans- simply did not understand the principle and design formed by the years and experiences. Through that of the Celestial Order. In marked contrast to the process, she carries a continuing identity, an iden- kindergarten teacher’s remarks, Mark Twain, in a tity that links together the baby, the matron, and passage well known to many LDS readers, stated: the white-haired matriarch in a oneness that con- Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only tinues, according to LDS belief, throughout eter- two days, and therefore we had no time to nity. For these women in early Salt Lake City, make the customary inquisition into the work- among the first to enter into plural marriage after ings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics those at Nauvoo, appreciation for and conversion and deductions preparatory to calling the to the covenants sometimes developed slowly until attention of the nation at large once more to they blossomed into understanding. Eliza R. Snow, the matter. I had the will to do it. With the a poet and wife of Brigham Young, wrote: “As I gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish increased in knowledge concerning the principle to plunge in headlong and achieve a great and design of Plural Marriage, I grew in love with reform here—until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than it, and today esteem it a precious, sacred prin- my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly ciple–—necessary in the elevation and salvation of and pathetically “homely” creatures, and as I the human family in redeeming women from the turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, curse, and world from corruptions” (Snow, 17, qtd. I said, “No—the man that marries one of them in Derr 70). For those born descendants of these has done an act of Christian charity which brave women, there is quiet understanding of the

157 AML Annual 2004 joys and challenges their forebearers faced and a each other through loss and fear, joy and celebra- certain sense of identity and loyalty to the dignity tion. They helped one another with life—with of these early pioneers in Salt Lake City. deaths and births and everything in between. The novel The Giant Joshua, written by Mau- Whipple describes efforts of the women to reen Whipple and published in 1941, represents raise a generation of dignified, well-groomed and another kind of pioneer life. Comparatively, Salt well-behaved daughters: “All the little girls in town, Lake City was a fairly civilized place. The Giant starched and curled, each clutching her wilting Joshua was recommended to me by several people bouquet, formed a vanguard” (230). And in another when they learned I was interested in the early cul- passage, “Clory twisted her hair in the new English tural experiences of Latter-day Saint women in chignon, pinched her cheeks before the cracked Utah. The harsh life described in its pages assumes mirror above the cupboard. . . . But one must keep a tangible quality in its descriptions of almost one’s looks as long as possible” (505). The novel unendurable living conditions. It reflected, too, tells a sad, human story, but it shapes an under- most graphically, the hardships of crossing the standing of a generation long ago who consciously plains. When Willie, a quiet, nonassuming (and set a standard of cleanliness and presentability for often neglected) plural wife and important charac- those who would follow. ter in the book, was dying, her memories are I recall a young mother from Utah in my described as swirling about her, and the following St. Louis ward who was there while her husband description of her hand-cart experience is given: was completing medical school. Each Sunday, lined up, smiling, and behaving well, were her four Greasing axles with bacon and even soap. little girls, “starched and curled,” with big bows to Chewing a crumb of buffalo meat until it got white and tasteless. Rationed to less than half a match the pretty dresses their mother, a woman pound of flour a day. Feet festered, wrapped in with an MBA, had actually made. She was the Pri- rags. Remnants of human bodies eaten by wolves. mary president and devoted to her family and call- Five hundred head of cattle stiff amid the snow- ing. To me, that shining little group of girls banks. Tents and wagon-tops blown away and remains a memory of a mother who understood wagons buried up to the tops of the wheels. well the role she had chosen. Men pulling their handcarts up to the moment The young mother I have just described was they died. Wading a river and cutting shins named Marian, and she was no Stepford wife, nor against the blocks of ice. Joe eating a dead horse was she a product of Helen B. Andelin’s Fascinat- in the moonlight, mistaken for a wild animal, ing Womanhood, a book published in 1963 that shot. Ground too frozen to dig graves. Sixteen claimed to guarantee the strategies for “winning a die in one night, bodies piled up. Not enough man’s genuine love” (1). I was given the book, men with sufficient strength to pitch tents. Sat apparently popular among many LDS women, on a rock until morning with dying children on when I joined the Church in 1966, and though my lap. Feet frozen, bare upon the snow, I crawled some of it was common sense, a good part of it forward on hands and knees, then on elbows taught women to be manipulative. Marian was a and knees. “Sister, the martyrdom of Joseph person of integrity who brought children into the and Hyrum was nothing compared to this!” (Whipple, 497) world and fully assumed responsibility for their care and training. She loved taking care of her Reading this book for the first time without home and children and enjoyed her husband, but knowledge of the whirlwind of controversy that she drew the line at canning. At one point, several attended its initial publication, I found that the life women who were Primary teachers called and said Whipple described represented strength and weak- they would not be there for their classes that week ness, beauty and horror, life and death, and within because they were bottling green beans. Marian it all women supporting, loving, and strengthening turned to me (I was one of the Primary counselors)

158 Tradition and Cultural Shaping of Utah Valley LDS Women and remarked that canning or bottling was some- King, and Hannah Cornaby, for example” (Brady, thing she would never do. She said she had seen a 113). There were also literary inclusions from well- lot of it in her lifetime, but making freezer jam was known female writers such as George Eliot, Harriet as far as she would ever go in that department. Beecher Stowe, Louisa M. Alcott, Elizabeth Barrett Marian was a product of her rural upbringing, yet Browning, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Wilcox, Anne she was a self-examining person and enjoyed read- Bradstreet, and Phillis Wheatly. It gave to Utah ing and studying both sacred and secular materials. women “ a sense of belonging to a community of She set her own priorities concerning the way she women writing” (Brady, 115). A perusal of the spe- spent her time and sometimes remarked that a cial collections shelves at the Brigham Young Uni- woman could find time for everything she might versity library should convince anyone that the want to do if she only did some planning. The LDS women of this period were serious about women who were doing the bottling had made writing, and that has continued as represented by that choice consciously as well. There was a small the thousands of honors and master’s theses, and window of time in which the vegetables could be books of poetry and essays, written by female stu- processed at their peak, and their credo was focused dents in the last hundred years. on a waste-not point of view. That view represents another dynamic and important perspective of pioneer and contemporary Mormon women. 1875–1900 LDS women, even those in isolated, rural areas The Woman’s Exponent continued to be an impor- of Utah during the last quarter of the 1800s, tant link with the world outside Utah until its end prided themselves in being informed about literary in 1914. The paper itself, and the women who and political issues. This was a time of women’s were regular readers, realized that it gave “Mormon suffrage movements in the United States, and the women . . . a new medium through which to ‘speak women in Utah were just as anxious to attain vot- for themselves’ and to represent their own ideas ing rights as any other group of American women. about ‘woman’s rights’ to national advocates” (qtd. The Women’s Exponent, a publication established in in Wagenen, 39). Brady further tells us, “The effect 1872, forged a link between the women of Utah such publications had on the development of Mary and other women throughout the nation. In the [Susanna] Fowler’s own sense of herself as a woman non-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune, however, articles of words cannot be overestimated” (112). written by women from outside Utah strongly sug- gested that women in Utah should vote to termi- Susanna Fowler (1862–1920) was a polyga- nate the practice of polygamy. The LDS women mous wife and mother who lived in Orderville and did not respond to antipolygamist crusades. Those later Huntington, Utah. Brady wrote Fowler’s biog- who had entered into plural marriage covenants, raphy based on narrative, diary, personal life history, for the most part, kept their commitments. They and church records and emphasized the “unselfish had already received suffrage in 1870, long before usefulness” of this woman’s life as a poet and folk the rest of the nation. healer in the communities where she lived during Many of the women were interested in a vari- her youth and prime. But more than that, we can ety of other topics, not the least of which was lit- look at what Susanna Fowler represents as a proto- erature. The Women’s Exponent presented book type of the interconnectedness among women that reviews and articles with an emphasis on female was a part of the early pioneer sisterhood. writers. Margaret K. Brady, folklorist at the Uni- Grounded so firmly in this female community versity of Utah, stated, “This . . . also extended to of caring, Mary Fowler began her young adult an inclusion of poetry and essays by the finest Mor- years already fully immersed in the intercon- mon women authors of the day: Eliza R. Snow, nectedness she would find central to her con- Emmeline B. Wells, Emily Woodmansee, Hanna ception of self. In fact, Mary Fowler’s days as a

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young wife and mother in Orderville, and later children, because he could not acknowledge the in Huntington, were often comprised of join- family. She also worked as a practical nurse and ing with other women in work activities sometimes, in tending the ill, had to leave the fam- (braiding rugs, sewing, or taking care of the ily for days or weeks at a time. sick, for example). These informal associations Late in her life, she wrote an autobiography for with other women, begun first as a young girl her family called A Mormon Mother, which pres- in the United Order, continued to be Mary’s ents an intimate view of the life of a woman who support and sustenance throughout her adult life. And like her mother, Mary’s network of raised ten children alone. She wrote, “My prob- friendship and work also included a sister-wife. lems were only details to Mr. Tanner. I don’t sup- (Brady, 47–48) pose he ever felt concerned as to how I would work them out. I imagine that all his wives carried, more Though the United Order didn’t last long, it or less, their own responsibilities” (313). This stal- was truly an experiment in unselfishness. And that wart woman, a school teacher and then a nurse, selfless concept is another cultural concept that kept her integrity when “her highest hopes, one continues to shape both the behavior and philoso- after another, were irrevocably shattered. . . . Her phy of LDS people, both men and women. An will was never broken” (Tanner, xxi). She wrote, example of these ideals of “unselfish usefulness” “The principle of obedience dominated the teach- and interconnectedness are the cultural behaviors ings of . . . her girlhood” (Tanner, 2), and “in those that emerge almost automatically as members of times it was a man’s place to create conditions, wards grow older together. In my own LDS ward, and a woman’s place to accept them” (Tanner, 29). an old one where generations have grown up and Her son Obert, in the introduction to the book, grown older while helping one another with chil- wrote, “Seldom has one individual combined such dren and challenges, there is a particularly estab- a high degree of both intellect and compassion” lished interconnectedness between the sisters. (Tanner, xxxii ). Spending decades attending meetings together, cel- According to her son, Annie Tanner bore all of ebrating together, and tending and teaching each other has bred a familiar community that is tightly this hardship, deprivation, and loneliness with dig- knit and supportive, yet not exclusive. When new nity and faith in the will of her Father in Heaven. people move into the ward boundaries, the sisters In the closing of the book, she wrote, “My children shower the family with home-cooked goods and were never a trial to me. I have always loved my friendly tips about the neighborhood. work” (335). Reflecting on a story like this one and I’d now like to turn the discussion back to reaching out to internalize the honor and dignified 1883 and another LDS sister. Annie Clark was example of a woman of such steady character is married to Joseph M. Tanner in 1883 “when polyg- something that one can do only by reading and amy, or ‘plural marriage’ was widely practiced and pondering the stories of these women who hon- strongly defended by the Mormon religion” (Tan- estly lived the principles of celestial marriage. And ner, xv). Doug Thayer of the BYU English Depart- yet, in every branch and ward around the world, ment recommended this book about Annie. Her there are women who, with total devotion and parents lived the principle, Annie herself was the little murmuring, raise their families alone with the second wife of Joseph M. Tanner, a teacher. After joy of the gospel to hold them up. This Mormon marrying Annie, he took two more wives under the mother, in the midst of incredible hardship, covenant and then was forced by law to abandon including her own constant fatigue and occasional all of them. He had seventeen children, ten of poor health, raised her brood, and among them them born to him by Annie. This brave woman were teachers, professors, lawyers, businessmen, “scrubbed the floors and did the housework for and devoted mothers. neighbors and relatives” (xxvii) in order to feed the We read of the past to shape the present.

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1900–1925 them alive and healthy. Training was given through the Relief Society, and as Women of the Covenant After the 1890 Manifesto announced by Wilford states, “The mothers’ work had catapulted the Relief Woodruff, polygamy was officially forbidden by Society into a program that would seem for women the Church in obedience to the law of the land, of later generations its chief purpose: education” and Utah became an official state in the United (Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, 161). Women were States of America. During the first twenty-five years being taught to manage their homes more effi- of the twentieth century, life in rural Utah was a ciently and to participate in works of charity. These fairly constant battle between survival and death directions were to continue even to the present day from starvation or disease. Infant mortality was high, when the latest directives of the Relief Society are which meant constantly wrestling with the reality to provide the sisters with useful information that of death. Leonard J. Arrington wrote of his family can be applied to their daily lives, both temporally in Spanish Fork in September 1900: and spiritually. During the winter, the entire family came down with smallpox . . . the house was quarantined, and they had no income. The family very 1925–1950 nearly starved this winter, saved only by their During this twenty-five-year period, significant dried fruit, tomatoes and whatever else Priscilla events occurred that shaped many cultural facets of had been able to can and by the help of ward LDS women’s experience. The twenties brought members and friends. . . . Elder Mueller, who the Relief Society’s increased emphasis on child- had baptized Priscilla, brought a large box of care and outreach social programs. At the same Christmas food and clothing, including a dress time, films and magazines such as Ladies Home that Sister Mueller had made for Priscilla; the Journal and Good Housekeeping had shaped, almost family remembered it as “a pretty dress and a nice one.” (Arrington, 474) dictated, traditional Thanksgiving meals and Christmas celebration procedures for the country. Again, families helped families, and women helped The visual media provided a plethora of appealing women. In Salt Lake City during this same period, images of what became American material icons: life was safer and physically more comfortable, but the overstuffed sofa and chair, room-sized imita- it was a period of disruptive transition. Idealized tion Turkish carpets, electric lamps on every table, monogamous marriage was a popular ideal, and telephones, a shiny chrome and white kitchen, and “the twentieth century attitude was one of accentu- a pink bathroom. LDS women, along with women ating the similarities . . . between ‘Zion’ and ‘Baby- in the rest of the country, hoped to create homes of lon’” (Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, 153), instead of visual appeal and domestic peacefulness. The Great the differences. The concept was to get along with Depression in the thirties did not impact the rural nonmembers and to try to be more helpful to non- areas of Utah and Idaho as severely as in the Eastern members in Salt Lake City and in other areas of the cities, and because of the abundantly producing state. Both in Utah and in Idaho, attendance farms, there were few families in the Intermoun- among the young women at meetings was falling tain West who went hungry. This was not as true off because they had different perceptions and for the urban areas in the West, and the Relief Soci- goals than the leadership, primarily comprised of ety worked long, hard days to provide for the needs women a generation or two older. of the unemployed. There were continued social Historically, the first twenty-five years of the welfare movements both within and without the twentieth century were encompassed by a national Church, bringing people’s attention to the needs of zeal for progress; the industrial age was in full swing, the less fortunate, and of course, this was the period and younger women wanted to learn new, scientific in which the great welfare systems of the Church methods for caring for their young and keeping were born.

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The LDS women were taught practicalities of wife, mother, cook, homemaker, Gospel Doctrine shoestring survival for their families during this time, teacher; earn an advanced degree; do arts and crafts, and the stories grandmothers and great-grandmothers gardening, reading, jogging, travel, and everything tell of the deprivations and hardships for some dur- else—and still look like a Barbie doll. The truth is, ing this time are sobering. Again, I ask, how does as reported by the National Women’s Health this impact the cultural shaping of today’s LDS Resource Center (http://www.healthywomen.org/ woman? Having female students who seem to content.cfm?L1=3), heart attacks are topping the think that ground beef is born in those little white charts as a cause of early female death. Further, plastic trays with shrink wrap and that bread will “younger women tended to have heart attacks that always be abundant in every variety imaginable is were more severe and were accompanied by more also sobering. Most of the wards I have attended in complications than their male peers did” (Science the last fifteen years or so seem to have dropped the News Online: www.sciencenews.ort/sn_arc99/7_ genuine emphasis on food storage, and it has been 24_99/fob8.htm). That wasn’t, and isn’t, the kind a long time since I have heard, “Store what you use; of cultural shaping we need. use what you store.” Many women, particularly LDS women, still seem to feel that pursuing professional interests outside of the family can “only be bought by failure 1950–1975 in the home” (Hurd, 141). That really isn’t true. During this period of time I lived in St. Louis, Mis- Each individual sister has undefined abilities and souri. Our Relief Society president was a member capacities, and it is the responsibility of each indi- of Phyllis Schaffley’s Eagle Forum, a conservative vidual to learn, through serious self-examination group founded largely to fight the passing of the and prayer, what hers is. Many women’s physical and Equal Rights Amendment. I can remember being intellectual capacity is full serving the family shuffled off on a bus sponsored by the Relief Soci- and the Church and working in the home. That ety, with a baby on each hip, to hear Ms. Schaffley is great if it works for her. I’ve heard repeated con- speak. I was busy with my children but trying to versations about mental depression in Utah LDS stay informed, so I took part in spite of the incon- women. These reports may or may not be true, and venience. It was difficult. This, of course, was a period as the general reading public now knows, depres- of unrest for the entire country. Voices seemed to sion can have many causes from chemistry to cir- speak out of nowhere helping to devalue women’s cumstance. Medications are readily available to help roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers, and I will victims of this incapacitating disorder. If it is true, admit that I stopped reading newspapers and mag- if the incidence is genuinely higher here, the ques- azines for a while during this time because I wea- tion to ask is why. I have yet to see statistics that ried of being told that I must be unhappy. I had been supply that evidence. Is it a misunderstanding, as blessed with a nice husband, a safe little home, a my friend suggested, of the striving for perfection, bunch of kids, a row of cookbooks, fine health, and or is it possibly simply mental or physical fatigue? genuine happiness. Gloria Steinham, Betty Friedan, The financial reality of today’s world makes and a host of others convinced American women being a full-time homemaker a genuine privilege. that they were missing something very important If a homebound sister feels the need for intellectual by staying home and taking care of their families. stimulation, an adult education or university class There is no question that the feminist move- can be added to the week’s schedule. Or, of course, ment opened myriad doors for women and all some sisters have enough strength and organiza- minority groups in positive ways, that is, socially, tion to pull off a full-blown career of law, medi- intellectually, and financially. But it also created cine, or academics, provided they have operative the era of the “Super-Mom,” the woman who support systems. The most challenging situations, thinks she should, and can, do it all, that is, be a of course, are the single mothers who must work to

162 Tradition and Cultural Shaping of Utah Valley LDS Women take care of their families. I believe that they should and we all know that public school teachers should be at the top of the list for care and assistance from be paid more and taxes should be lowered. Again, the priesthood, Relief Society, and ward members. how do LDS women fit into all of this? Returning If they aren’t, as one of my male students reminded to the question posed in the beginning of the paper, me recently, they sometimes become embittered What is a Mormon woman, thoughtful Mormon and leave the Church. It is simply too hard without women wonder this, and they give us food for our support, and that is what happened to his mother own pondering. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, writing who raised him alone. for a special issue of Dialogue called The Pink Dia- One of the great teachings of the Church is logue and Beyond in the winter of 1981, stated: that the Lord, knowing the financial, psychologi- Lehi’s story has particular relevance for cal, and emotional chaos of the world, has allowed Mormon feminists. As the wrenching struggles women to be recognized on an individual basis. of the past five years have forced us to reach for What a woman does with her time is between God the eternal and enduring amid the transient and her conscience, and she has both the Church and and temporary, we have felt and grasped the Iron the law to back up her choices. Reflect a minute on Rod—sometimes to our own amazement. For those good pioneer women. They surrendered most so many years I have been a questioner, a pro- of their pleasures and agency to provide these tester, a letter writer; I had begun to think that choices for us. It is our responsibility to honor that words like faith and testimony belonged to other legacy and consciously construct our lives in a way women, the ones who sat quietly in the con- that honors their sacrifice. I think that is how gregation, meekly acknowledging the author- we thank them for what they did for us, and I ity of the brethren. Gradually as I have found think that is one of the concepts we need to teach myself in front of a class or down on my knees or back at my typewriter after each new crisis, our daughters and granddaughters. I have begun to realize that those words belong to me. (38) 1975–2003 In an interview conducted by graduate student During the last twenty-five or thirty years, the Church Kristina Kugler, her subject, Ashley Rayback, has grown into a world organization. There are responded to the question, What defines an LDS over one hundred temples. What does that mean woman? by saying, “I think that technically, all women in terms of the cultural shaping of LDS women who are LDS would be defined as LDS women. over time and space? In the LDS view, that means I don’t think that in order to be LDS you actually LDS women all over the world are learning to live have to live it. There is a difference between being under the protection and guidance of the Holy part of a religion and actually living it, but I guess Ghost. It means women all over the world are I’m rather literal in assuming that if you are LDS, receiving blessings through the authority of the you are, regardless of how you live it. Pretty simple, Priesthood. It means all over the world, women, but I take definitions pretty literally, I guess” (Ashley encouraged to maintain those elements of their Rayback, personal interview, 15 November 2002). ancient cultural traditions that will not detract Graduate student Lauren Gillespie asked the from gospel principles, are learning to temper their same question of Kimber Nielson and paraphrased views and embrace the charity that is Christ. Kimber’s response: In these last years, the United States has enjoyed Kimber addressed this question in terms of unprecedented economic gain as well as startling qualities of womanhood that reflect the teach- recessions. The stock market has gone up, up, up, ings of Jesus Christ. She specifically mentioned and down, down, down. There are wars and rumors unconditional love, motherhood, and kindness. of wars. There has been high employment and high She discussed the differences between what unemployment; crime rates have gone up and down, she calls the “reality” of LDS women versus the

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“ideal.” By this she meant that LDS women are devoted to good. Our legacy from the past is often flounder to meet a standard of LDS rich, and I believe that both the present and the womanhood that includes everything from future can be aglow with promise if we choose to looks and clean homes to service and educa- believe that they can be. Our spiritual and cultural tion. Kimber feels that the reality of LDS heritage was created by design, not by accident, womanhood can be daunting and virtually and our response to it is our choice. unobtainable. The ideal of LDS womanhood, on the other hand, encourages women to define themselves by pursuing their personal WORKS CITED talents and striving to fulfill their own life dreams, rather than trying to live each day Arrington, Leonard J. “In Quest of Betterment: The according to a uniform prescription of happi- Lee Roy and Priscilla Arrington Family.” In Nearly ness.” (Kimber Nielson, personal interview, Everything Imaginable: The Everyday Life of Utah’s 8 November 2002) Mormon Pioneers, ed. Ronald W. Walker and Doris R. Dant. Provo, UT: Brigham Young Univer- One of the women I interviewed, Elizabeth R., sity Press, 1999. said she felt an LDS woman is defined by the love Andelin, Helen B. Fascinating Womanhood. Clovis, CA: she gives others. She suggested that the “gospel is Pacific Press, 1963. like a cocoon of love, a security. It is positive and Beecher, Maureen Ursenbach. “Women’s Work on the even more encompassing than a safety net, and an Mormon Frontier.” Utah Historical Quarterly 49 (Summer 1981): 276–90. LDS woman committed to the love and charity of Brady, Margaret K. Mormon Healer and Folk Poet: Mary Christ learns, over time, to give that love to Susanna Fowler’s Life of “Unselfish Usefulness.” others.” I know Liza well enough to know that she Logan: Utah State University Press, 2000. believes and practices what she says (Elizabeth R., Clarke, Sheryl. Personal interview. 14 October 1997. personal interview, 26 September 2002). Provo, UT. We are all so different. We are individuals with Carter, Kate, and Daughters of Utah Pioneers. Brigham mosaics of experience that construct our own care- Young: His Wives and Family. Bountiful: Carr fully fitted cultural perceptions and practices. Elder Printing Company, 2000. Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve said Derr, Jill Mulvay. “The Lion and the Lioness: Brigham in his October 1996 conference address: Young and Eliza R. Snow.” BYU Studies 40:2 (2001): 55–101. Of course, our genes, circumstances, and Derr, Jill Mulvay, Gwyneth Russell Cannon, and Mau- environments matter very much, and they shape reen Ursenbach Beecher. Women of Covenant: The us significantly. Yet there remains an inner Story of Relief Society. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, zone in which we are sovereign, unless we abdi- 1992. cate. In this zone lies the essence of our indi- E., Marilyn. Personal conversation. 9 February 2003. viduality and our personal accountability. . . . Provo, UT. Like it or not, therefore, reality requires that we Givens, Terry L. By the Hand of Mormon: The American acknowledge our responsibility for our desires. Scripture That Launched a New World Religion. (Maxwell, 21) Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. As we LDS women are shaped by our heritage Hart, John L. “Ten Million Members Worldwide.” , 1 November 2001, 3, 5. and life experiences, we need to try to remember LDS Church News Hinckley, Gordon B. Standing for Something: 10 Neglected that we are responsible for our agency, or inner Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes. New zone, and what we choose to do with it. My dis- York: Times Books/Random House, 2000. cussion began with a discovery of a monument to a Hurd, Kerrie W. “The New Reliable Me.” In Mormon probably strong LDS woman who lived and served Women Speak: A Collection of Essays, ed. Mary in Utah. To me, I perceive most of these women, Lithgow Bradford. Salt Lake City: Olympus Pub- past and present, as women of the covenant who lishing, 1986.

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Jack, Elaine L. “Read . . . One to Another.” In The Doc- Taylor, Sally. Personal interview. 13 October 1997. trine and Covenants: A Book of Answers. Salt Lake Provo, UT. City: Deseret Book, 1996. Twain, Mark. Roughing It. 1872. New York: Penguin Kane, Elizabeth. A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Books, 1985. Dixie, 1872–73: Elizabeth Kane’s St. George Journal. Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. “The Pink Dialogue and Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust Fund, University of Beyond.” Dialogue 14.4 (Winter 1981): 28–39. Utah Library, 1995. Wagenen, Lola Van. Sister-Wives and Suffragists: Polyg- Maxwell, Neal A. “According to the Desire of [Our] amy and the Politics of Woman Suffrage 1870–1896. Hearts.” Ensign 26 (November 1996): 21. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Studies, 2003. Nielson, Kimber. Personal interview. 8 November 2002. Whipple, Maurine. The Giant Joshua. Salt Lake City: R., Elizabeth. Interview. 26 September 2002. Provo, UT. Western Epics, 1976. Rayvack, Ashley. Personal interview. 15 November 2002. Women’s Heart Attacks. National Women’s Health S., Virginia. Personal conversation. 9 February 2003. Resource Center: 7 February 2003. http://www Provo, UT. .healthywomen.org/content.cfm?L1=3, and Sci- Snow, Eliza R. “Sketch of My Life.” This sketch is dated ence News Online: 24 July1999: “Women’s heart 13 April 1885. Holograph, Bancroft Library. attacks kill more often.” http:www.sciencenews.org Tanner, Annie Clark. A Mormon Mother: An Autobiog- /sn_arc00/7_2499/fob8htm. raphy by Annie Clark Tanner. Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust Fund/University of Utah Library, 1991.

165 Questing I, Altogether Other, or Both? Three Poems and a Prose Bit on Nature

Patricia Gunter Karamesines

s a writer of poems and stories about nature, of the creation that God looked upon after he made AI must ask what purpose such writing serves in them, saying they “were very good” (Moses 2:31). a culture concerned with the salvation of human souls. Two views present themselves for consideration. Dead Horse Point In his essay “Keepers of Stories,” Dan Wother- The weedy clouds of spring spoon writes that Latter-day Saints have “many clues Grow on the peaks, break off, then drift that God . . . honors as intrinsically valuable every In tall gardens over sandstone blue entity in the universe” (51). He poses further that With the bruise of squalls. I stand Two thousand feet above the coils each entity desires “joining in deeper, more com- Of a river that has burnt its way, plex relations with other entities” (49). One impli- Leaving behind this red stubble cation of this view is that the purpose of nature Of canyons. Buds of lightning burst writing would be to advocate such relations. And wither at once; But what if, as Alex Shoumatoff puts it in Leg- The air is rutted with breezes; ends of the American Desert, “Other” exists only as a Stones lie where they fell cracking projection of the self, positive or negative, into cul- At the roots of cliffs. The land tural or natural environment? (490). In this case, pil- Twists through bands of light, Like a juniper through soils, at the sun, grimages into wilderness engage the psyche in an And if my blood did not burn, like the river, archetypal adventure, tapping into reservoirs of the The clays of its country, I would see sacred each of us carries within. Thus the natural The horizon ripple with growth. world becomes a cathedral of mirrors wherein we Here I am only slightly longer-lived see ourselves unfold. Writing about such pilgrimages Than the lightning; I may not last would amount to keeping sacred records, and the The next stone’s throwing. quality of the records would depend upon a writer’s Now is May, and winter hangs ripe ability to imagine him- or herself in a landscape. And white on peaks just east Nature: a cathedral of mirrors, an interface region Of these cliffs. On canyon floors, wherein we engage “Other,” or both? This question Thin blossoms growing through drifts designates what might be considered a gospel fron- Of sunlight freckle the sand; tier, an only lightly mapped area of our beliefs. Yet Yucca sends up its stalk. I myself am midsummer, sun is liege, it is fully worthy of deeper exploration by LDS writ- Fruit halfway down-branch ers, especially in context of our doctrines of free To the ground. The moon on her tether agency, eternal progression, and redemption. Person- Keeps large on the horizon; unwashed stars ally, I find irresistible the urge to wander such terri- Spread thick and flagrant across meadows tory. When I do, I turn in my writing to elements Of crescent and dwindling times.

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It seems to me in my half-summer, And back, jazzing blue Two thousand feet above the river, Stars on rimrock, Years below the stars, and all Silence’s bottomless glissando: But one sense out of the range of snow, These wind through navel and nerve There have been mistakes: the cut seasons To tune on the very grain of the blood. Of childhood and time drawn from the pulse The first, casual ears may hear Marking wilderness with one worn path Without reflection, but the other— Of mortality. Some effect of desert Worse than sirenia, Makes it seem a range of times Songs that send the hearer Inhabits distance, much as light Screaming to the mirror Skidding through water sets down tracks For solace of self. Of fast and slow color. Or if time Back at the fire, bold adventurers say, Is relative, it is irrelevant, “Had I not heard it, Or all the same, or a figure men use Would it have been so ravishing?” In the garden marketplace, Like inch or ounce. Or confluence— Oh, please. Then longevity is not measure of things Let us not be tempted by conundrums. Outlived, but how deeply the soul If the song sings remote, Winds in the braid, like, Entangling no ear, Two thousand feet below, the river. It still sings. Through intervals between storms We must not think a place faceless Light sweeps peregrine upon sandstones— If we do not see Navajo, Windgate, Kayenta— Ourselves in its rock, Old eras made flesh and dwelt among Nor beautiful if we think we do. By generations of four tribes of wind. Yet we who are caught Lightning crumples as it’s born, In prayer-loud places Wearing white paths As though by deluge, Through rain-bearing clouds. Two ravens Try to make something out Rise bickering on a draft. Beside me, As we are ourselves unmade. An unbloomed cliffrose whistles It is an old dance. As a gust out of the tempests tangles Between our broken footsteps, On a black branch. The wet tick of rain Around and through, Flecks my skin; shadow falls; Leaves separate from trees— The river bears down; the stones ascend. Scales of silence falling Stone Mirrors Falling here, and flashing In star-garnered canyons “A light in sound, and sound-like power in Across whose walls Scorpio light. . . .” And Lacerta scuttle. —Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Eolian Harp” The title of this next poem is “Desert Gramarye.” Some earth sings, having in inclinations Gramarye here means “magic,” but also I chose the Of droplet, gust, grain, and glint word for its sense of a grammar book or primer. Brilliant proclivities to voice: This poem rose out of a trip I took last September Leaves crinkling in a clench of breeze; arias when I went to a place in the desert I have visited Of rockfall; echo-heaped woodnotes. many times over the last twenty years. On this visit, But some earth chants. I found it heavily “enchanted,” one might say, Raw, wild whoops of light by Park Service signs. Some think this poem That stone mirrors fling back anti–U.S. Park Service. It is not, but I did feel it

168 Questing I, Altogether Other, or Both? Three Poems and a Prose Bit necessary to respond to language “fencing off” what To ward off potent spells flung at the feet for me is one of the sacred places of the earth. In the first few steps of a journey. I breathe: Desert Gramarye Flash Flood. Come. It is like the old Tarzan movies: We have met many times and parted White hunters find their way barred Always on good terms. By skulls on sticks. I would like to see you again, Old friend, Flash Flood. The Park Service has erected A pavilion on the rim. Quicksand. Come. Beware, it says. We are no strangers. Quicksand. Flash floods. You caught me by my ankles, How to Resuscitate Lightning Strike Victims Then retracted your claws; One warning tells. I remember It pretends helpful information, Your tongue’s rasp. But it is another white skull. Perhaps we shall wrestle again, Mud panther, On a sideboard, the complete caveat— Quicksand. A man pierced all through with sticks. We are loath to look on it, but do: Lightning— It alone rates five full skulls. You I am not so sure about. When your gray matter thunders Thirty-five-year-old male, it says. And your synapses Not enough water. Fire between heaven and earth, Disoriented. Delirious. Let me not be found in those corridors. Collapsed. Convulsions. Fall elsewhere, flash elsewhere, Lightning, Core body temperature one-hundred-and-eight And I will tell all degrees Of blue quarrels bolting cloud to cloud, In an air-conditioned ambulance. Of electrokenetic harpoons Expected to recover, but— Havocking lone jumpers. Suffered liver and brain damage. Thus I shoulder my pack I don’t understand. And pass by all skulls, Did he recover, or didn’t he? Speaking soft words Ah—that is not the point of the skulls. Of relation. In the old Tarzan movies The skulls, the shrunken heads, My husband Mark describes my novel First The bad juju, B’wana, Angry as a story about a girl and her dog. That is They mean, this could happen. about right, except I might say that the novel To you. is about a girl, her dog, and a landscape, and there is We hope. also scripture and a little murder and mayhem The tribe that inhabits these parts— thrown in, along with some original folktale-like The fierce Park Service— stories—I call them faux folktales—set into the They maintain all hearts of darkness storyline. Beating in these wilderness. In this scene the main character, Alexandra No doubt they know already McKelvey, takes herself off into the desert with We are here. B’wana, her dog, Kit. She is trying to gain perspective on They have much bad juju. trouble afflicting the BYU archaeological field Yes. I can see that, camp she has been attending—and perspective is And I wonder what I have brought with me what she gets.

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Excerpt from First Angry count how many drops fell as they plunked like pearls down broken green strings of moss. All around her, The wash broadened suddenly into a fan of moist soft echoes played off stone walls—whispers recit- sand. The walls, too, widened to form a rounded, ing tonal charms. chamber capped by an azure disc of sky. Just a few Surely this was a deliberate place. Alex got the yards away lay a shallow plunge pool. Kit waded in impression it had shaped itself here by notion or and drank noisily. Set into the talus slope just beyond choice—perhaps even by inspiration. Geologically, the pool were small, centuries-old grottos playing it could be considered a happenstance of nature. As music that in this natural amphitheater found com- some said, in any realm of the great kingdom of plete and pleasurable expression. Water clittered Serendipity, elements and natural forces happily around three moss-framed, stone-keyed seeps. Their and unexpectedly discover each other in glorious wiry and crooked little streams stepped and ruffled cosmic accidents. down-slope to empty into the pool. But there are no accidents, Alex thought. Things Alex sighed. All that existed in the world were came to where they were or to where they met the seeps, tinkling like shaken jewelry or liquid through choice. Choice shone as a facet of proba- chimes, a sound silvery and variegated, and Alex, bility, and probability a facet of—what? Creation? their audience, taken in by them, her sympathetic And creation shone in long, illumined and illumi- chords thrumming in response. Water in the desert— nating rays, shafting and fanning from—where? sunlight’s perfect foil, a colorless manna. Here were Some said they didn’t come from anywhere, they veins of it—capillaries, really—wetting and weav- just were: beauty is its own excuse for being. ing their way, singing, Take, take-only enough, and But as Alex gazed around the Water Temple, no more. she thought, beauty is not its own excuse for being. In faith that the seeps would be running, Alex Perhaps the gorgeous acted as a weathervane indi- had brought very little water with her—one bottle, cating wind direction, but of course a weathervane mostly gone now, and one more empty. The seep reveals only those aspects of a breeze relevant to the on the far left dripped slightly faster than the other task at hand. Objects or confluences of event that two. Each time it was different—which seep seeped human beings respond to for their beauty, however, fastest. Choosing her steps so as not to damage a seize upon the soul, provoking that desire Alex garden of summer-blown columbines, she climbed thought a harbinger of Other. Alex was irresistibly to that far seep. attracted to Other, even though, in her experience, Once, she had arrived so early in the spring encounters with it required heaping dearly held that a platter of ice, threaded with hairline cracks worldviews upon flame-licked altars. In return, the so that it looked like the colorless iris of an eye, conflagration yielded generous pay-off. Eye opening floated on the pool’s surface. The slow, circular and song inspiring, Other enfolded the soul into a movement of the platter and the rounded bank of boundless, native economy, a multiplicity and replen- sand fleshing out the pool gave the impression of a ishment leading to both satiety and desire all at once. heavy-lidded eye gazing slowly around and up. The No, she thought, there’s a good chance beauty sky returned the gaze from its own pond of depths. directs the gaze beyond itself. Alex propped one bottle under the fastest seep She heard words—she wasn’t sure whether she and set a second in the next. Compared to the faucet thought them or spoke them. Maybe another voice blasts of modern plumbing and the surge of flush- uttered them. When she was in this state of mind, ing toilets, these beads dropped ever so slowly. This it was hard to tell. Speaking her mind or speaking was not a place for the dehydrated. If you depended to her mind, the voice said, That which strikes as on a place like this to sustain you, you planned beautiful raises consciousness with balms distilled your thirsts. You waited for the water to step to you; from herbs grown elsewhere than the half-undeveloped you could not force it. If she wanted, she could plot of the human soul.

170 Questing I, Altogether Other, or Both? Three Poems and a Prose Bit

Alex had read or listened to readings from others She’d made changes in her life, but—like she like herself who adored Nature. Some pilgrims, imagined it might be done, on a grand scale, ele- stricken by such visions as Earth and its skies con- ments a-swirl, crossing corridors in an augenblick, jure, seemed to try to make of it a lover, a parent, a taking on new names? goddess. Alex suspected that at least a few who No. sought to defend their beloved from ravages of Yes! humankind in turn exploited it on other levels by “Not just at this moment.” forcing imagery and intentions upon it that were She gazed around the chamber like a fledgling foreign, shaped wholly upon fixed self-images, sor- seeing the edge of the nest with an eye suddenly rows suffered, innocence lost. Then in such cases, wide to the peril in her own wings. Below her, the and to varying degrees, perhaps it was themselves plunge pool lay flat, its silvered surface bending they were hastening to defend, salvage, or preserve. back pale images of cliff and sky On the other hand, maybe it was exactly right— Water in the desert—both mirror and window. these voices from the earth speaking loss. Parts And the sky overhead—a blue-backed mirror by of the earth mourning over exploitation suffered, day hemming in our consciousness and our image struggling to survive. Yes, Alex mused—it was pos- of the present, and an open glassless eternity at sible: people, being of the earth, sharing the earth’s night filled with rippling and eddying times and fate, perhaps down to the cellular level, and all that events of light and fire—the pyrotechnics of worlds trouble concerted, crying out. without end. Yet as Alex crouched at a seep at the rim of one Water and sky—our torment and our relief as eye looking up at another, it occurred to her that they intimate we are not self-sustaining, nor is now the earth did not flourish alone, but garnered its an end unto itself or all that ever could be. living elements from vast fields of voluptuous lights and life that traded across eternities of being. If this was so, then at least in some respects, Nature WORKS CITED could take care of itself. Perhaps beauty—the kind Shoumatoff, Alex. Legends of the American Desert. New that shakes mortal understanding by the scruff of its York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. New York: Harper- neck—was inviolable. Capable of cataclysms of Perennial, 1999. renewal, it could return and reclaim its ground— Wotherspoon, Dan. “Keepers of Stories.” Irreantum 4.2 maybe even improving it in the process. (Summer 2002): 46–51. “More to the point, what of me?” Alex asked. “Am I capable of renewal like that?”

171 My Big Fat Greek Wedding: A Model for LDS Filmmaking?

Eric Samuelsen

here are some compelling reasons why LDS whose culture demands of her four things. She must Tfilmmakers might be attracted to My Big Fat obey her father in such matters as romance and Greek Wedding as a model for their—our—own career, she must marry a Greek man, be a virgin on efforts. The film cost $5 million to make. As of her wedding night, and bear and raise a large Greek- 9 February of this year, the latest figures I’ve seen, American family. Tuola meets and falls in love with the film has a domestic gross of just a shade under Ian, a high school teacher from a WASP family of $240 million dollars. Despite a critical response undetermined ethnicity, and she and Ian decide to that was by no means universally positive, it remains marry, culminating in the wedding of the film’s the most lucrative romantic comedy ever made. title. The film, in short, is a romantic comedy. And it’s a film based on, rooted in an insular and The first thing that struck me, however, is how generally unknown culture, without movie stars of comparatively conflictless it was. The all but oblig- any kind, written by and starring Nia Vardalos, atory structure of romantic comedy, in which two a woman who is part of and who in her own life people meet, initially dislike each other, fall in love, represents positively the culture in which the film enjoy each other’s company, are then parted, usu- is set. Simply put, thars gold in them thar hills. ally due to a misunderstanding, and are reconciled And that’s not a negative thing. One presumes that at the last minute, is almost completely absent. Ian $240 million does not represent multi-multiple and Tuola are mature and responsible adults. They viewings by Greek Americans. It’s a crossover hit. meet, fall in love, decide to marry, and marry. Early I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that a Mormon in the film, Ian invites Tuola to dinner at his crossover hit would be nice. favorite Greek restaurant, Dancing Zorba’s. Tuola’s In my recent work with LDS screenwriters, it parents run that restaurant. Typically in such films, has become increasingly clear that I’m not the only she would offer some excuse why they should eat writer to have these thoughts. I have read numer- somewhere else, and her unwillingness to admit ous scripts lately for romantic comedies set in Mor- her association with the restaurant would become mon culture. None of them have particularly the cause of the misunderstanding which frac- grabbed me, and I thought it might make sense to tures the relationship, leading to the obligatory last look carefully at Big Fat Greek Wedding itself. What minute reconciliation. I remember anticipating might be at the heart of this film’s popularity? How some similarly contrived overplotting. But no, Tuola well does it serve as a model for our own efforts? simply tells him the truth, and the moment passes. What can we learn from it? And how do our cur- Later, when Tuola’s father discovers they’ve been rent crop of LDS films compare? dating, he refuses permission for the two to con- My Big Fat Greek Wedding tells the story of tinue the relationship. But no conflict results; Ian Tuola, a Greek-American woman just turned thirty, simply tells Tuola, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and she

173 AML Annual 2004 nods. They’re past thirty years old. They want to night. Ian provides the impetus for part of her marry. Her father’s objections are, properly enough, gentle rebellion against cultural expectations. But treated as irrelevant. she’s begun a process of self-liberation before Ian Throughout the film, any relationship obstacles enters the picture. are treated with this same mature common sense. It’s precisely this central dynamic of the film, At one point, Tuola tells Ian that she would like to this series of cultural negotiations and compromises, simply elope, leave her family and culture behind. small acts of subversion, followed by cultural re- Ian, though, is wise enough to know that she examinations, that’s at the heart of the film. I’d also doesn’t mean it. Her Greekness is an essential part like to suggest that cultural negotiation is the key of who she is; her cultural identity is Greek. He’ll to the film’s extraordinary success. Greek culture, adjust, as needed, to her culture. At one point he as portrayed in this film, seems loud and boisterous even agrees to baptism in the Greek Orthodox and earthy, but we can also see how confining it is. Church. I anticipated, perhaps, some crisis of faith And yet, in the film’s finest moments, the film for Ian, some scenes involving his discomfort over reveals a culture confident enough to open itself up this essentially forced conversion. But no, Ian sees to redefinition. her church affiliation in almost entirely cultural Cultural negotiations occur throughout the terms, as indeed do the other characters. And so film. Tuola’s aunt is momentarily nonplussed when he’s baptized without fuss or bother, beyond a wry her offer to cook for Ian leads to the revelation nod to the embarrassment of it. that he’s a vegetarian. But she recovers quickly and This unwillingness to force a conflict into situ- announces, “That’s all right, then. We’ll serve lamb!” ations where no conflict, properly, should arise is, Tuola’ s desire to work at the travel agency leads to I think, part of the charm of this film. It does, how- a conspiracy in which her aunt and mother trick ever, suggest a film in which there’s actually no real her father into giving permission. And, at the film’s problem to be solved, a film in which the stakes are climax, the wedding, Tuola’s father offers a toast reasonably low. I’d like to suggest, however, that to the happy couple, in which he announces that the central conflict of this film has nothing much the family name, which means “Orange” in Greek, to do with Tuola’s relationship with Ian at all. The is nicely complemented by Ian’s family name, which major dramatic question of this film is not, as means “Apple” in Greek. “So,” he concludes, “we’re would be the case in conventional romantic com- all just apples and oranges. Both fruit.” And Ian’s edy, “will Ian and Tuola marry?” The central issue uptight WASP parents drink ouzu and dance with of this film is better phrased “will Tuola carve out their new Greek in-laws, and the film ends with images a space for herself within her culture?” Greek cul- of reconciliation and extended family togetherness. ture, in this film, is portrayed as vital and vibrant It is precisely this openness to change, this and earthy. And also confining, smothering, and sense of an inclusive vitality in Greek culture tran- insular. Tuola’s love/hate relationship with her cul- scending our initial impression of insularity, that, ture is at the heart of the conflict in this film. I think, makes the film so joyful. My Big Fat Greek Again, look at the list Tuola, in a voice-over, Wedding ultimately reveals itself as a film that cele- provides for us early in the film. She is expected to brates cultural difference, without in any way obey her father in such matters as romance and suggesting a violation of cultural essences and career, she must marry a Greek man, be a virgin on identities. It could only have been created by some- her wedding night, and bear and raise a large Greek- one like Nia Vardalos, a woman comfortable in her American family. But Tuola, against her father’s own culture precisely because she’s carved out a wishes, takes courses in a nearby college. She leaves place for herself within it. In the film’s final scene, the family restaurant for a more congenial job at a Tuola’s own child is sent to Greek school, which we travel agency. She dates and marries outside Greek perceive as far more than a mere nod to her Greek- culture. And she is not a virgin on her wedding ness. “But,” Tuola tells her daughter, “you can marry

174 My Big Fat Greek Wedding: A Model for LDS Filmmakers anyone you want to.” To paraphrase: Remember Throughout much of the film, Charly is under- that you’re Greek, but also don’t forget that you’re standably unwilling to even consider the offer of you. Find your own identity, your own unique the Mormon boy, Sam, to teach her about the space in the world. But remember the culture that Church. When she does begin investigating, her formed that identity, that space. Surely even the conversion process is described in the film in a very title, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with its overtones truncated version. But a turning point in that pro- of exasperated affection, suggests the film’s central cess is clearly a moment when she tells Sam’s mother dynamic. that she has developed a sudden urge to . . . can. It’s precisely this sense of cultural negotiation I think this is a moment fraught with signifi- that is, I reiterate, at the heart of this remarkable cance. Conversion for Charly clearly involves a film. The fact that it’s a romantic comedy is essen- good deal more than repentance and baptism. At tially irrelevant. When LDS filmmakers trying to no time does the film suggest that marriage to Sam copy the film’s success do so by setting romantic could involve his moving to New York. She’s a comedies in LDS culture, they’re fundamentally painter; she has to live in New York. Sam’s a com- misunderstanding the appeal of My Big Fat Greek puter guy, vaguely defined; he could easily find Wedding. And I am concerned that too many of the work in her town. And her apartment, what we LDS films that are in current release provide us see of it, is clearly large enough for both of them. with precisely the opposite sense of LDS culture. But no, the film clearly argues for the necessity So far, too many of our most popular films have that Mormons live in Utah. Indeed, Charly com- portrayed our interaction with LDS culture in pre- mits that most extraordinary of sacrifices for her cisely opposite terms than those used by Vardalos new culture; she gives up a rent-controlled Man- and the Big Fat Greek Wedding team. Rather than hattan apartment. Her art changes. She stops paint- suggest the possibility of negotiating with the cul- ing reasonably interesting still lifes and begins ture, finding a space for ourselves within it, too painting in a style that I can describe only as early many of our films have suggested that LDS culture Liz Swindle. requires that we cram ourselves into a specific cul- Charly, the film, suggests very little possibility tural identity, inescapable and nonnegotiable. of cultural negotiation. We all know, of course, I’d like to show how this dynamic functions in that it is perfectly possible for someone to be polit- three LDS films: Charly, Singles Ward, and the first ically liberal, an intellectual, an artist living in half of The RM. I say first half, because that’s all I Greenwich Village, and an active Latter-day Saint. saw. The film hasn’t been in release for very long, I knew a man in Norway who was both an LDS and my first chance to see it was last night, when bishop and an abstract impressionist. But those the projector broke approximately half-way through. choices, or others like them, are never even offered I fully acknowledge the inappropriateness of to us by this film as possibilities. responding to a film I haven’t seen completely, and Now, one could argue that Charly’s decision to I understand that my impressions of it may well paint sentimentally is the sin for which God pun- alter if and when I see the rest of the film. ishes her with death. More seriously, one could point To begin with Charly, then. Charly is not, of to evidence in the film that Charly, after marrying course, a romantic comedy, though much of the Sam, finds Utah Mormon culture congenial. She first two-thirds of the film feel like one. But along obviously enjoys shocking the sisters in Relief Soci- with the romance of the film is a conversion story, ety with her openness about sexuality, for example. and culture becomes a very large part of the Still, this depiction of Mormon insularity is dis- story. Charly is initially presented to us as an artist, comfiting. Charly’s negotiations with Mormon cul- politically liberal, living in New York with her ture, in this film, feel more like surrender to cultural boyfriend. She describes herself as an intellectual, imperatives than any actual give and take. When and we’re clearly meant to see her as a free spirit. Charly reveals an interest in canning, for example,

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Sam’s mother (an otherwise agreeable and strong- Cammie, who has just received her mission call. willed woman) could easily have laughingly told Jon begins his act by telling jokes about cigarette her, “honey, that’s great. But you sure don’t have to smoking and the dangers thereof. His tone is can to be Mormon.” That is, after all, true. aggressively self-righteous, reflecting the film’s own The Singles Ward is a film about which I am shorthand towards its own typology, and Cammi somewhat reluctant to speak. I have, after all, been is the only person in the room laughing. His act quite outspoken on the subject of this film on bombing, Jon then turns to material we’re led to AML-List. It does seem, however, far and away the believe is his stock in trade, innocuous jokes about closest match to Big Fat Greek Wedding of all Mormonism. Example: he’d acted in a production the recent LDS film releases. It is, after all, a film of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but in Utah, about a protagonist, once comfortably ensconced it became Seven Brides for One Brother. It’s mild within a culture, who has become alienated from enough stuff, but Cammie takes offense and leaves it, who then forms a romantic attachment that the nightclub. In the parking lot afterwards, she enables him to reconcile with his cultural past. tells him off and even suggests that his stand-up act Structurally, there are at least superficial similarities is an attack on the Church itself. And this leads between the two films. to the couple’s obligatory—in conventional plot When we examine this film in terms of this terms—estrangement. theme of cultural negotiation, however, these simi- Let alone the fact that, in this scene, the stock larities between Singles Ward and My Big Fat Greek in trade of the entire film, gags about Mormons, is Wedding become less significant. It is quite true that here condemned. Let alone the fact that nothing both films show their respective cultures in fairly else in the film suggests that we’re to regard Cam- broad and comical terms. But Singles Ward is a mie as mistaken. What interests me is the cultural depiction of characters who are outcast from their fallout from this scene. Jon, in order to marry, quits culture. They’re comically inept losers, poor dancers his stand-up act. He marries Cammie and thus in unfashionable clothes and ugly haircuts. My Big reconciles himself to her views, specifically, we pre- Fat Greek Wedding, on the other hand, depicts char- sume, as regards to the role of comedy in Mor- acters who are perfectly comfortable in their cul- monism. There’s no process of negotiation, of Jon, ture. Jon, the protagonist of Singles Ward, is troubled as a comedian, carving out his own unique identity primarily by his inability to fit into Mormon cul- within his culture. On the contrary, Cammie, who ture, which is conceived in terms more monolithic emerges as the film’s raisoneur, represents a cultural than insular. Tuola, on the hand, initially is per- stance that can be described only as take it or leave ceived by her family as fitting nicely in Greek cul- it. If Jon wants to be a comedian, he can go right ture. But she’s not happy. And she won’t be happy ahead. But there’s no room for you in Mormonism. until she learns how she can be herself first. It’s precisely this sense of Mormonism as cul- Singles Ward relies throughout on a kind of tural monolith, this inability to accommodate even cultural short hand, in which images of cigarettes the most trivial cultural difference that makes and beer become signifiers for unrighteousness and this film ultimately, for me, so despairing. It’s a worldliness. This is not done, I think, in satirical funny film; the audience on the night I saw it terms, mocking those Mormons so narrowminded laughed a lot. But it’s not much fun. In fact, I that they really think they’re better than anyone found watching it to be a singularly joyless experi- else because we don’t smoke or drink beer. On the ence. My Big Fat Greek Wedding ultimately cele- contrary, in this film, we’re made to think that Jon brates the vibrant, life-filled, earthy vitality of Greek is in spiritual peril because he’s alone in a room culture, suggesting that that culture can indeed with a girl who drinks beer. embrace the Other and accept the possibility of This leads to the key scene in the film, Jon, a individual autonomy within its own boundaries. professional comedian, performs for his love interest, Singles Ward portrays Mormon culture as not just

176 My Big Fat Greek Wedding: A Model for LDS Filmmakers insular, but oppressively rigid. My Big Fat Greek mother whose reaction to the news that her oldest Wedding is a marvelous, huge, circus tent of a movie; child’s fiancée has broken off their engagement Singles Ward depicts Mormonism as the tiniest of is “that’s too bad, honey,” is hardly credible as a pup tents. loving parent. And if Mormon romance is so I hesitate to say much about The RM, the sec- superficial that a two-year engagement can be shat- ond release from Halestorm Entertainments, Kurt tered without so much as the courtesy of a letter, Hale and David Hunter’s production company. As then the solemnity of temple marriage must be I said, I saw only the first half of the film. I can accounted something more farcical than genuine. comment on what I saw, however, and this time, I do not discount the possibility that all this is the issue of cultural negotiation becomes even intended as the savagest sort of satire. Perhaps Kurt more problemitized than in Singles Ward. In this Hale, the writer and director of this film, has made film, the protagonist, Jared, has just returned from a film hoping to open our eyes to an almost socio- his LDS mission, where we’ve been led to believe pathic emotional shallowness at the heart of Mor- that he’s been an exemplary missionary. His post- monism. The world of The RM, where adult mission life is similarly squared away; his girlfriend friendship is reduced to an opportunity for multi- has waited for him, and they plan to marry imme- level marketing schemes, and romantic love is diately, he has a good job lined up, and he’s head- utterly without gravity, pain or consequence, could ing to BYU. He is, in other words, a man perfectly well serve as the setting for a Swiftean succession of adapted to his culture. He’s an insider, suggesting Modest Proposals. But I saw nothing in the tone that we’ll be given an insider’s perspective. of the film, the weight of it, that suggests that The outsider in this film, Jared’s best friend sort of comic anger or satirical rigor. Kori—Kori spelled so that the name is obviously And again, the rigidity of Mormon culture, as intended to invoke that Book of Mormon arch vil- it emerges in The RM, is even suggested in the pro- lain Korihor—has, in Jared’s absence, become motional materials provided by Halestorm. The involved in some sort of shady business dealings. purpose of the film, suggests a press release, is to Jared must therefore choose between his own sense cause Mormons “to think deeply about what it of personal integrity and his friendship with Kori. means to choose the right and hold to the rod.” I did not see how the film resolves. I presume It would be consistent with the construction of that Jared chooses to turn Kori in. But it’s in the Mormonism found in Singles Ward to suggest that supposedly comic details that make up the first half Kori’s outsider status is essentially criminal. He of the film that this film’s peculiar take on Mormon cannot be depicted as someone in the process of culture emerges. cultural negotiation, a process Jared either helps Jared arrives home, and no one is waiting for or impedes. No, he has to be a crook. He has to be him. His parents have misplaced his itinerary. They’ve Korihor. also moved, without telling him. After sorting that It’s an inhuman film, a joyless film. And it sug- out, he learns they’ve sold his car. His girlfriend, gests an essential joylessness and inhumanity meanwhile, has become engaged to someone else within Mormonism. But in tone, in style and sub- and dumps him. stance, it seems to celebrate moral rigidity and joy- Kirby Heyborne, who plays Jared, treats none less convention. I’m glad the projector broke. of these disasters as anything but minor irritations. I don’t think I could have taken much more of it. We’re clearly meant to each successive indignity as Conventional wisdom currently holds that comical, and there are a few sight gags that manage Mormon films must be budgeted at $1.2 million to be funny. But it’s an inhuman sort of fun. A or less. The market for them tops out at around family who cannot remember the day their mis- $2 million. Certainly we have yet to see a Mormon sionary will be returning, and who move without crossover hit. I’d like to suggest that the relative informing him of it, is beyond dysfunctional. A inclusiveness of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the

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“we’re apples and oranges, all still fruit” conclusion we have. I don’t see myself as in any way a main- to the film’s process of cultural negotiation is the stream cultural Mormon, but I do see myself as an reason for its success. The comparative joyfulness active and faithful Latter-day Saint. I have carved of that film, as compared with the despairing joy- out my own space in the culture, as, I surmise, has lessness and inhumanity of our Mormon counter- every person in this room. Within my own ward I examples, are reason enough to celebrate their see as much vitality and energy and boisterous good comparative failures. humor as Tuola eventually finds in her own Greek Is a Mormon Big Fat Greek Wedding possible? world. We needn’t deal with Mormon weddings, or I must cling to the hope that it is. I am a Mormon. make romantic comedies about Mormons, to joy- And, frankly, when I look at our culture, I see far fully celebrate our own sense of difference and oth- more joy and openness and room for cultural nego- erness and humanity. We know, in our hearts, we’re tiation than any of our films have suggested that as big, and as fat, as any Greek.

178 “Dangerous Questions Affecting Closer Interests”:1 Subversion and Containment in “The Senator From Utah”

Kylie Nielson Turley

odern Latter-day Saint (Mormon) literature indicates that the feared labor crisis is about to Mrarely addresses expressly political topics. erupt, and they all rush home to Salt Lake. Perhaps the assumption that “good Mormons are The violence will apparently occur the evening conservatives” prevents writers and readers from of the Senator’s Ball in Salt Lake City. When the remembering Utah’s checkered political past with labor union leader’s daughter, Arden Rath, comes the accompanying interesting tidbits such as the to the ball to warn her boyfriend/Senator’s son, support socialism once enjoyed. Even before Hugh, of the rumors, she overhears the Senator Latter-day Saint prophet Joseph F. Smith claimed and his son planning to murder the laborers at to see “no harm in the wise and intelligent study their Factory Hall meeting by opening the secret of socialistic principles,”2 Josephine Spencer pub- passageway to the Great Salt Lake, locking the only lished three distinctly socialist stories in the entrance to the building, and thus allowing the ele- Church-sponsored Contributor, including “The vated springtime waters of the Great Salt Lake to Senator from Utah.”3 With class struggle as its flow into Factory Hall and drown the laborers. plot, “The Senator from Utah” lends itself to Though she rushes to get help, the deed has Marxist criticism, presenting a unique opportunity already been done and water is seeping into Fac- to use Stephen Greenblatt’s theories about how tory Hall. Luckily, a young middle-class labor- subversive ideas are “contained” and Terry Eagle- sympathizer, Allan Glenfaun, volunteers to wade ton’s theories to speculate on why LDS readers through the passageway and shut the door. Allan at different moments in time reacted with every heroically fights the breaking waves and manages emotion from ambivalence to literary violence to shut the heavy metal door. An hour later, Arden when responding to this story. These reactions Rath and Howard Whitely (a journalist) arrive highlight issues facing contemporary LDS fiction with the police and unlock the outside door. Arden in modern times. Rath marries Allan Glenfaun, and June Glenfaun (Allan’s sister) marries Howard Whitely. Plot Summary At a political convention, a mysterious speaker Basic Examples of warns that violent class warfare is a real possibility Subversion and Containment in Utah. The Senator from Utah and his aides in Stephen Greenblatt’s first method of subversion is Washington, D.C., are also concerned, recognizing “testing.”5 The mysterious speaker in “The Senator that Salt Lake City has a “Labortown” whose pop- from Utah” tests the subversive idea that change ulation is “pledged to wage incessant and deadly towards socialism is inescapable. He argues that the warfare against capital and its class.”4 A telegram “history of dispensation is a record of new ideals,

179 AML Annual 2004 or revolution and substitution.” Change is inevitable both ideologies. The labor ideas that could poten- “whether its coming be by slow and peaceful steps, tially subvert the system speak only through a (mis- or with the fierce rush and tumult of revolution.”6 guided) capitalist aide to the Senator. Though Containment occurs when the “test” is effectively recorded, the “alien” voice is recorded only in the disarmed. As Greenblatt argues, the “crucial circum- language of the dominant ideology, and thus it is stance is what has licensed the testing in the first only as convincing as the dominant ideology place.”7 The mysterious speaker soon clarifies that allows it to be. “‘it is the responsibility of the nation’s chief repre- Greenblatt’s third method of subversion, sentatives to decide’” whether change will come by “explaining,” is evident in this same instance. As “peaceful steps” or by “revolution.”8 Since the chief Greenblatt notes, it is potentially subversive for the representatives are part of the government, the capitalists to “explain” in “unusual circumstances” Repressive State Apparatus, the “inevitable” change certain parts of the ideology that at most times are will be organized and established by the members “merely assumed.”14 One of the Senator’s aides jus- of the dominant ideology, and thus there will be no tifies the use of premeditated violence against the real change. Moreover, the mysterious speaker’s laborers: “‘I claim that it is not enough to have plea for the representatives to “‘choose well’”9 power merely to punish violence already commit- contains the subversion notion of change because ted. We should have the right to use measures to there is actually a “choice” that “chief representa- prevent the deed.’” The Senator continues this line tives” decide. of reasoning: “‘It is my settled conviction that there Greenblatt’s second method of subversion and is but one way in which to meet this question, containment, the “recording of alien voices,”10 is and that is to face terrorism with its own mask and also evident in Spencer’s story when the logic of weapons. Certainly all other methods have failed; socialism is voiced. Capitalism has “ignor[ed] the and we have either to meet this problem with some lessons taught by the experience of other commu- such effort, or submit our lives to the ceaseless anx- nities, and [is working] through the same old self- iety and fear occasioned through their threats and ish principles and methods of monopoly, plac[ing] attempts at violence.’”15 These statements are its hand upon the materials of production, at each potentially subversive because they are not wholly new accession of power, riveting new restrictions convincing. The Senator must explain why force is upon the rights of labor.”11 This “alien” voice is justified, and, as Greenblatt suggests, this process blatantly “recorded” and clearly argues against cap- of explaining is “intense” and “unsettling” because italism. As Greenblatt notes, this is subversive there is the “nasty sense that [the explanations] are because the voice might be believed or might make at once irrefutable ethical propositions and pious people recognize the dominant ideology as ideol- humbug designed to conceal from . . . [the speak- ogy. However, the subversive insights are contained ers] the rapacity and aggression that is implicit” in because they are recorded only as an example of their propositions.16 The subversive moment is incorrect thinking; they are “brought into the light contained when the Senator receives a terse telegram for study, discipline, correction, transformation.”12 reading, “A crisis is at hand—come at once.”17 The In “The Senator from Utah,” the alien socialist telegram “proves” that the laborers are plotting voice is contained with a four-page capitalist rebut- injury and that the Senator and his aides were cor- tal explaining that the laborers are just as immoral rect: terrorism may be necessary to deal with such as the laborers believe the capitalists are. The labor- vicious persons. ers are capable of radical violence; the Senator says he is fearful for his life and expects that ‘“any day may bring me news of the destruction of my home More Subversion and the assassination of my family.’”13 Signifi- Though the signs of containment are evident in cantly, the Senator and his aides are the voices of these three small examples, the subversive insights

180 Subversion and Containment in “The Senator from Utah” are not wholly contained. The “alien voices” That the two ideal male characters would move recorded (the prolabor arguments presented by the to the laborers’ side is a subversive plot develop- Senator’s aide) are persuasive enough to convince ment that effectively tests the hypothesis that the some of the other aides. At one point in the discus- laboring class is not only justified but also “right.” sion, the Senator actually “interrupts” his aide In a decisive moment of change, both characters because he is “annoyed by the look of interest leave the Senator’s Ball, the scenic metaphor for which had gathered upon the faces of the others at capitalism, to attend a secret laborers’ union meet- the pale man’s remarks.”18 The Senator’s explana- ing in Factory Hall, the physical metaphor for the tion is less than satisfactory; rather than directly labor movement. Though Howard Whitely prom- addressing claims that the laborers have justifiable ises to return to the Senator’s party and dance the concerns, he retorts with comments about fighting last waltz with June Glenfaun, Allan is never explic- terrorism with terrorism. The arrival of the itly present and does not return, demonstrating his telegram appears to “prove” that the Senator is cor- whole-hearted allegiance to the laborers’ cause. rect is his assessment of immediate class warfare Because of Allan’s dedication to the laborers’ and thus the rest of his arguments are brushed over, cause and his influence, he essentially becomes despite their silly and circular reasoning. the leader of the group. Some laborers claim that The subversive labor rhetoric especially does Allan has “rose-hued ideals of humanity and peace,” not seem fully contained in light of the characteri- yet Otto Rath (the original leader) comes to the zations and plot developments. The Senator is harsh Factory Hall platform and places “his arm around and offensive; he interrupts and argues “hotly” Allan’s shoulder.” Vocally continuing his physical while his aide, voicing the laborers’ cause, is much gesture, Otto vigorously argues that Allan has the more restrained, though obviously emotional. fortitude and courage to carry him through “both While the aide continually appeals to “fair means” doubt and danger for the sake of aiding [the labor- and to “justice,” the Senator argues ad hominem, ers’] cause.” Allan’s poem is well received, and calling the laborers “rabble.” As the story contin- Allan remains with the leaders of the movement for ues, the Senator and his son turn from being dis- “some important business.”21 With Allan’s ascen- agreeable to being immoral and criminal. sion to the leadership of the labor movement, his Juxtaposed with their personalities are Allan innocence and angelic qualities are transferred to Glenfaun and Howard Whitely, the good characters the laborers and their goals, a subversive plot devel- who defect to the laborers’ side. Spencer’s descrip- opment that tests capitalist ideology. tions of the two characters demonstrate their In opposition to the (subversive) cleansing of inherent goodness, a goodness that is (subversively) the labor movement is the (subversive) decay in the transferred to the labor movement when they join capitalist movement. This hypothesis of capitalist it. Howard Whitely is “blonde” and makes a fit- depravity is tested when the Senator and his friends ting, though contrasting, companion to the “some- carry out their plans for violence. They originally what impulsive” June Glenfaun (Allan’s sister).19 aim to “overhear the [laborer’s] plans,” but the Allan Glenfaun’s angelic looks are even more Great Salt Lake water level has nearly covered explicit: he has a “slight, youthful figure” and his the secret passageway that leads to Factory Hall.22 “delicate face [is] surrounded by short blonde Determined to stop the laborers at any cost, the curls, making him look boyish.” When he speaks, capitalists, led by the Senator and Hugh, conclude his “white lids with their girlish droop wide- that “‘the same obstacle which defeated our purpose opened, his soft gray eyes . . . [flash] with the of surprising the plotters at their meeting tonight warmth of enthusiasm.” Despite his childlike presented us with a means for accomplishing their appearance, Allan can “[set] forth with words destruction.’”23 At this point, the Senator casually clear-cut and forcible, the facts of the existent evils” describes how they can lock the one entrance to Fac- of capitalism.20 tory Hall, open the secret passageway from the Great

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Salt Lake, and let the Hall fill with water, drowning evils of capitalism, this “alien voice” is not explic- everyone inside. Not one listener rejects the idea or itly recorded. Instead the speech takes a “new tone” even voices disapproval of the Senator’s plot. and Allan “[pleads] in forceful words” for the The Senator proposes that terrorism justifies laborers to “[denounce] the policy of violence” and terrorism, but the mere rumor of labor violence claims that violence results in “worse bondage.” He contrasts with the casual and inhumane capitalist calls on the laborers to use the “one way alone violence. The only definite reference comes from by which . . . redress” can happen: the ballot. He “the wife of one of . . . the workmen living further declares, “‘In your right to the ballot alone lies your up the canyon.” The woman, who “couldn’t hear power to control conditions.’”26 Demonstrating his all that was said,” believes she heard “something complete belief in the system, Allan argues that they about dynamite and a ball at the Senator’s house placed themselves in their repressed situation. He tonight—and of getting rid of the whole crew of claims that they have sold their votes “‘for promises millionaires and robbers at a blow.” Despite the of place or pecuniary reward,’” and in so doing capitalists’ reiteration of these claims, the story they have “‘voluntarily given into the hands of a unequivocally notes that this woman has a “garru- selfish class, power to fasten upon you the condi- lous and indiscreet tongue” and repeats her gossip tions at which you repine; and your only escape is with “thorough enjoyment.”24 Moreover Allan to take from them by peaceful force of your fran- clarifies by the end of the story that rumors of labor chise.’”27 With Allan as labor leader, violence and violence were merely rumors, though he does con- class warfare—the means of change based outside demn the laborers for “‘determin[ing] in your the system—will be halted. He does not seem to hearts’” to think of a violent plan.25 In essence, the recognize the government as a tool of the domi- laborers never enacted physical violence nor even nant class nor to recognize that laborer votes will planned violence, though they had convinced not change the system as a whole. themselves that violence was necessary. His arguments are framed largely in terms of Allan’s angelic characterization, the laborers’ Christian ethics. This is potentially subversive lack of real violence, and the capitalist murder because religion, in Marxist theory, is also a tool of attempt work together to justify the laborers at the the State; if the laborers’ cause is religiously “right,” expense of the capitalists. Simplistically, the labor- then perhaps the dominant class’s hold over reli- ers seem “good” while the capitalists are “evil.” The gion is not solid. The mysterious speaker’s com- linguistic elements, literary characterizations, and ments seem to validate the subversive Christian the plot itself challenge Spencer’s capitalist audi- support for laborers; he claims that “‘when mists of ence and culture. As expected, these extensive selfish strife are cleared away from periods of pres- subversive elements are skillfully and subtly— ent action, [God’s] hand may be seen, writing in though perhaps not wholly—contained by the characters of new social systems and methods, story’s conclusion. truths which shall be for the regeneration of the world.’”28 Containment occurs when Allan uses the same ethical rhetoric to pacify the laborers. The More Containment Christian ideology of brotherhood and peace As already noted, Allan Glenfaun becomes a leader ensures the repression of the lower class by acting of the labor movement despite being born into the as a placebo, causing the laborers to desert their capitalist class. Even with his supposed support of radical methods and accept the vote, a capitalist the labor movement, he cannot allow a labor insur- tool that will never bring about fundamental rection. This is most evident in Allan’s repeated change. The leaders of the new peaceful (capitalist) condemnations of violence during his speech at society will be characters such as Allan who Factory Hall. Though he apparently speaks for some have won the respect of the laborers and yet have time of the certain and indefensible injustices and placated them so subtly that the laborers do not

182 Subversion and Containment in “The Senator from Utah” realize they are being pacified. Christianity works contention and strife to divide the state.” The to return laborers to “their class” without violence review concludes with the misleading assessment or insurrection. that “the senator from Utah is one of the principal characters,”31 suggesting that the Senator is the principal hero in the story rather than villain. Greenblatt’s Fourth Method and Both reviews are somewhat accurate: the story Impact: 1895, 1935, Present Day ends romantically, and nearly all Utah Mormon Even if the subversive plot developments, the test- authors contributed to the Home Literature move- ing of socialist ideals, the recording of socialist ment; yet overlooking the socialist themes requires thought and the accompanying explanations nec- some blindness. Daily these reviewers were living essary to respond to socialism were not contained, with the drastic effects of the Depression of 1893. Greenblatt has a fourth method of containment. The other stories in Josephine Spencer’s book He explains that “we identify as the principle of address the Depression explicitly. Perhaps the very order and authority in [texts] things that we real rumblings of labor dissension made labor vio- would, if we took them seriously, find subversive lence an altogether too realistic threat. Greenblatt’s for ourselves.”29 Modern interpreters of literature theory of mislabeling seems to explain why these subvert and contain by (mis)labeling anything reviewers contained the subversive idea of labor vio- which is subversive as “containment” and vice lence by mislabeling the story, calling it a “romance” versa. Although Greenblatt does not rank his four and a contribution to “home literature.” techniques, the fourth method seems strongest Unlike the previous reviews, the 1895 review since it comes into play when the first three meth- of “The Senator from Utah” in the Woman’s Expo- ods apparently do completely contain the subver- nent labels the story “political” yet the baffled tone sive insights. suggests reviewer (likely Emmeline B. Wells) cannot Contemporary 1895 reviews of “The Senator comprehend why Josephine Spencer wrote the story: from Utah” demonstrate Greenblatt’s theory in The author seems to see in the political action, as they consistently (mis)label Josephine horizon storms brewing that might perhaps be Spencer’s story. A review in the Young Woman’s averted were wise methods adopted in the new Journal says that “our poetess” has “again found her State. Evidently she feels strongly upon the vital way into romance.” The book review vaguely and questions of labor and capital and sympathizes somewhat inaccurately reports that the story is deeply with the laboring classes. It is quite a “of the class of novels written with a purpose,” that new departure for a young Utah woman, and purpose being to point the way to “peace, and every one who believes in encouraging the tal- prosperity, by legislating for the rights of the ents of home writers should buy the book and 32 working-man.” The Journal then returns to its read it. original premise, noting the “two interesting love The reviewer undercuts the text by using words tales” and the “stirring adventures.”30 Rather than such as “evidently” and “seems to see.” She explicitly mislabeling elements of the story, this review clarifies that the author is a “young Utah woman” simply mislabels the story as a whole—calling it a and concludes with the backhanded suggestion romantic adventure story. that people should buy the book to “encourag[e] The Deseret Evening News decides that “The the talents of home writers”—as if the story has no Senator from Utah” is a “contribution to home lit- merit beyond supporting the Mormon Home Lit- erature.” This review erroneously claims that the erature industry. Though the story is labeled cor- orator in the first chapter “addresses his audience rectly, the reviewer is obviously uncomfortable on the qualities required in the Senator from Utah” with the subject matter. and then summarizes ambiguously that the story Gean Clark’s 1935 thesis presents an intriguing “follows a future view of Utah ‘as it might be,’ were opportunity to further evaluate Greenblatt’s fourth

183 AML Annual 2004 method of subversion and containment. Clark must too, have been involved in containment because I have found socialism very threatening because, “locate[d] as ‘subversive’ in the past precisely those after singling Josephine Spencer out of all Mormon things that are not subversive to [me], that pose no writers for specific adulation and then praising most threat” to me. According to Greenblatt, I likely of Spencer’s stories, Clark denigrates “The Senator (mis)labeled the labor movement as “subversive” from Utah.” With uncharacteristic superficiality, and the Senator’s terrorist campaign as “contain- Clark writes that “‘The Senator from Utah’ is less ment.” Re-labeling capitalist terrorism as subver- convincing that most of Miss Spencer’s stories.” sive shows Greenblatt’s insight. The idea of planned Clark claims the “story is sometimes amusing rather governmental terrorism in a post–September 11th, than serious” because Spencer’s futuristic story has twenty-first century America is realistic and terrify- nineteenth-century “busy streets, where one sees ing. Conversely the socialist labor movement is the trailing dresses of the ladies and heavy traffic of perhaps not subversive at all. In a post–Cold War horse-drawn vehicles,” which obviously do not world, I find the idea of socialism as little threat belong to Clark’s “modern twentieth century!” and perhaps even enlightening; planned labor war- Claiming that the story is unbelievable fantasy, fare seems fairly remote while state-sponsored Clark dismisses “The Senator from Utah” because terrorism is realistic. As Greenblatt notes, my easy Spencer did not foresee the dress styles and innova- mislabeling demonstrates that “our own values are tions of the 1930s. The only mention of socialism sufficiently strong for us to contain almost effort- glibly summarizes that “trouble breaks out between lessly alien forces.”35 the capitalists and the labor party.”33 Though Greenblatt might suggest that I took mislabel- living with the effects of the Red Scare as well as ing elements even further—because I hold to the Great Depression, Clark nearly ignores the Josephine Spencer’s ideals of Christian brother- socialist plot, focusing instead on menial setting hood, I mislabeled the political as subversive and details, a move which allows her to contain the the religious as containment. To switch these labels story and label it as “less convincing than most of suggests that what I found truly subversive is the Miss Spencer’s stories.” apparent inability of religion to fully solve the press- As far as Greenblatt’s theories are concerned, ing political problems. Terry Eagleton’s theories help the most fascinating aspect of Clark’s short analysis analyze this prospect. He explains that a text can of “The Senator from Utah” is Clark’s incorrect interrogate an author’s personal ideology because reading of the text: Clark states that it is the “Sen- the application of aesthetic form to revolutionary ator’s son, through his bravery and heroism” who raw material causes dissonance in the text. In “The “saves everything.”34 This statement is obviously Senator from Utah,” Josephine Spencer was textu- inaccurate. The Senator’s son, Hugh, bribes a man alizing the revolutionary ideology of capitalist/ for information about the secret passageway, bribes labor revolt in aesthetically didactic and romantic another for the key to Factory Hall, helps his father language. As an artist, she gave her socialist raw plan to lock in and drown the workers, and pretends material the most persuasive voice possible in the to love Arden Rath so he can get information out intense, action-focused plot, yet romanticism and of her. The real hero is Allan Glenfaun, who hero- didacticism require a “flowery” language and theme ically fights the water in the secret passageway in of love at odds with the violence. The aesthetic order to shut the door and save the lives of all the requirements of Mormon Home Literature cause laborers. That Clark could mislabel the Senator’s son internal dissonance as they interact with a capital- as “hero” is a frightening commentary on our abil- ist ideology. ity to contain with ease truly subversive elements. The most obvious dissonance created by the The entire previous critique of “The Senator application of aesthetic form is the “happily-ever- from Utah” has involved my personal assump- after” romantic double wedding after the intense tions about the story. Greenblatt would argue that I, plot with its multiple turns of subversion and

184 Subversion and Containment in “The Senator from Utah” containment. Although there is precedent of vivid Romantic-didactic notions of what constitutes a description earlier in the story, the “mountains gleam- “good” story, her historical-cultural situation, and ing in pearl and turquoise tints” and the “plains in the “revolutionary” raw material in her plot created amber and coral colors” conflict with the passion- a complex story. The interplay of these ideologies ate energy of the previous pages. This break forced produced a text that seems to point out flaws in by the didactic-aesthetic form is a literal break: Christianity’s inability to adequately answer labor there are four blank lines before the two conclud- concerns—things the author probably never ing paragraphs. The empty space sets off the con- intended to support and things that create disso- clusion from the rest of the text, graphically nance and disharmony for her readers. emphasizing its incompatibility. Thus reactions to the story become a muddle With this incompatibility, the conclusion itself of mislabeling depending on historical-cultural situ- seems doubtful. Josephine Spencer’s text produces ation. Unfortunately, with that less-than-admiring the ideology of capitalism and socialism by placing reception of her story, Josephine Spencer turned these two ideologies in “mortal conflict.” The author from her political inquiries toward plots that better tries to solve the conflict by implementing her own fit the Home Literature style. Her turn towards ideology of Christian brotherhood, concluding romantic, didactic sentimentalism highlights a that “the better thought and action developed by problem that seems to plague LDS literature to the past events show[ed] that the right way had been present day: LDS authors can produce works with chosen at last; that men were dealing with men as shallow plots and shallow characters in which our brothers.”36 The author’s (romantic) aesthetic form religion superficially resolves those situations. as well as her own Latter-day Saint theology dic- Another option is the path of “The Senator from tates a conclusion synonymous with brotherhood, Utah”: to allow our religion to encounter “revolu- but the glorified wedding, which will supposedly tionary” plots and hard, realistic situations. The draw all sides of the class conflict together, seems predicament is the same as Josephine Spencer faced idealized, trivial, and unrealistic. “The Senator from with her 1895 story: this method may end up pro- Utah” “produces” an ideology of brotherhood, yet ducing radical texts; we may end up with stories the text illuminates significant problems in that posing “dangerous questions affecting closer inter- ideology. Christianity is “silent” concerning practi- ests,” texts that make us question who we are and cal aspects of the class conflict—such as whether why we believe in ways the author never intended. voters actually have power to change the system and why Howard Whitely believes it is necessary to rescue the laborers with “a number of the citizen’s NOTES [sic] private police.”37 As Eagleton describes, when 1. This quotation comes from Josephine Spencer, the ideology of Christianity is “put to work,” cer- “The Senator from Utah,” in The Senator from Utah and tain gaps and limitations become evident.38 Other Tales of the Wasatch (Salt Lake City: George Q. These gaps suggest why I unconsciously used Cannon and Sons, 1895), 11. Greenblatt’s fourth method of containment. Because 2. Joseph F. Smith, qtd. in Thomas G. Alexander, of the way in which a text can interrogate an Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day author’s ideology, the flaws of capitalism, religious Saints, 1890–1930 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 184. brotherhood, and the didactic literary style are 3. See “Maridon’s Experiment,” Contributor 15 (May shown. The incompatible and unrealistic end to 1895): 421–25; “Municipal Sensation,” Contributor 16 the story seems to demonstrate a failure in Josephine (December 1894): 102–13; and “The Senator from Spencer’s notion of Mormon Christianity, a sub- Utah,” Contributor 13 (March 1892): 216–29. All three versive notion that evokes considerable tension. stories were later published in a collection of stories titled What Josephine Spencer likely tried to write The Senator from Utah and Other Tales of the Wasatch. was her personal Christian philosophies, but the Quotes from the story are taken from the book version.

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4. Spencer, 26. 25. Ibid., 83, my emphasis. 5. Stephen Greenblatt, “Invisible Bullets: Renaissance 26. Ibid., 50. Authority and Its Subversion,” Glyph 8 (1981): 47. 27. Ibid., 51–52, my emphasis. 6. Spencer, 15, 16. 28. Ibid., 15. 7. Greenblatt, 47. 29. Greenblatt, 52. 8. Spencer, 16. 30. “Book Reviews,” Young Woman’s Journal 7 9. Ibid., 18. (December 1895): 93. 10. Greenblatt, 49. 31. “The Senator from Utah,” Journal History of the 11. Spencer, 24–25. Church (23 December 1895): 3; taken from the Deseret 12. Greenblatt, 51. Evening News, 23 December 1895. 13. Spencer, 26. 32. “Editorial Notes,” Woman’s Exponent 24 (Decem- 14. Greenblatt, 51. ber 1895): 93. 15. Spencer, 27, 29. 33. Gean Clark, “A Survey of Early Mormon Fic- 16. Greenblatt, 52. tion” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1935), 17. Spencer, 30. 68, 69. 18. Ibid., 29. 34. Ibid., my emphasis. 19. Ibid., 42. 35. Ibid., 52–53. 20. Ibid., 49–50. 36. Spencer, “Senator,” 85. 21. Ibid., 52. 37. Ibid., 83. 22. Ibid., 61–62. 38. Terry Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology (Lon- 23. Ibid., 64. don: NLB, 1977), 90. 24. Ibid., 56–57.

186 Three Against One: The True Antagonist in The Giant Joshua

Michelle Ernst

ormon Pioneers were driven out of Nauvoo but the three powerful forces of religion, raw land, Munder threats of extermination, and they and polygamy make up the novel’s true antagonist, came to Utah for freedom and for peace. Utah was which ultimately overwhelms Clory to the point of a difficult country to settle, but through their hard her death. work and faith in God, the harsh territory bloomed From the beginning, the land appears to be like a rose in the desert. Determined that the mem- unwilling to welcome the Saints: “White and crim- bership would be self-reliant, the Mormon leaders son, or black and yellow and blue—behind her and sent out a call to settle the outlying, more remote ahead and around her—spewed in fantastic violence, areas of the territory. The ensuing struggles, heart- in every shade and nuance, the colors of this unreal ache, and sacrifice involved in settling the untamed landscape” (3). This is not a lush, green promised land are now the often-told stories of Mormon his- land, beckoning, soft and flowing with milk and tory and legend. It is, however, the untold story of honey; it is a hostile, violent land that invades the internal struggle and sacrifice that characterizes and overwhelms the senses. Like Clory, it appears Maureen Whipple’s The Giant Joshua (Salt Lake to resist being under man’s control, wanting instead City: Western Epics, 1976). Clory MacIntyre is the to remain wild and free. Throughout the novel, the seventeen-year-old adopted daughter/third wife community members settle into a false sense of secu- of Abijah MacIntyre. Arriving in St. George with rity, only to have their hard work and effort destroyed the other Church members called to establish the in repeated violent, heaving storms. The slippery St. George Dixie Mission, the beautiful, spirited hardness of the volcanic rock makes entry into protagonist is unable to find freedom or peace. Not St. George both dangerous and costly. The unbear- only is she locked in an ongoing battle with an ably hot summers sometimes lead the Saints to unpredictable land, she is entangled in various believe they are inside an oven (194). The decimat- emotional conflicts with the other members of the ing storms repeatedly claim both the lives and liveli- MacIntyre family. Hated by her step-mother/ hood of the Mormons. The land seems to have a sister-wife and lusted after (but not respected) by will of its own, and that will appears to be bent on her step-father/husband, Clory has a married life beating these invading people into despair and dis- filled with turmoil and loneliness. Furthermore, the illusionment rather than being civilized by them. demands of her most peculiar religion (i.e., con- This continuous battle with the land for food, formity and community obedience), coupled with water, and shelter eventually defeats Clory’s physi- her ambivalence about her own testimony, do not cal body. Hard work, little food, and poor medical allow for any rest, even in her own mind. Physi- care make her and her children susceptible to ill- cally, emotionally, and spiritually, Clory is con- ness. Her children’s lives are lost to black canker stantly in conflict. Therefore, not polygamy alone, (399–404), and her own weakened constitution

187 AML Annual 2004 eventually leads to multiple miscarriages (585). is not completely at fault for his continued per- Externally, the effort devoted to meeting her sur- spective that Clory is a child. To some degree, his vival needs consumes Clory until she is no longer feelings are probably beyond his control. Even able to endure it. when children are adults, parents can still see the Furthermore, there is also the secondary inter- young boy or girl in the man or woman their chil- nal struggle the land represents for Clory. Cer- dren have become; Abijah is certainly no exception tainly, she is physically tied to its constant demands to this. for attention in order to produce food, but it also Over the years, there is little change in Abijah’s weakens her spirit. Clory loves beauty, culture, and relationship with Clory. Even after they have children refinement and longs for these things for herself together, he continues to treat her like a woman/ and for her children. In a place where a paisley child, alternating his passion with his tendency to shawl, a rosewood desk, and a perfume bottle are parent her with reprimands and behaving puni- of no use to anyone, Clory keeps them as reminders tively towards her. The only letter he ever addresses of civilization and her dream for something better. to Clory when he is on his mission has only one In all of her years in the Dixie Cotton Mission, she line for her alone, and he says, “This trouble is never loses her hunger for beauty, music, and laugh- God’s judgment on you, Clorinda Agatha” (436). ter. St. George, then, becomes a prison for her Interestingly, Sheba has lost a child too, and Abijah because she is cut off from the things that would does not dare make such a statement to her. There feed her soul. Subsequently, she is kept in a perpet- is much that he does not dare to try with Sheba ual state of turmoil by both the unmet needs of her because Sheba is his equal, if not his superior. Clory, body and the unmet desires of her heart. on the other hand, he considers to be his inferior. Clory is also denied the security of warm, loving His indifference to her needs and desires culminates relationships in her family life. Instead of acceptance in his taking young Julia Hansen as his fourth wife and love, she was trapped in confusing, painful tri- and leaving for Logan without so much as discussing angles with two important people in her life, it with Clory until the deal had already been made. Abijah and Sheba McIntyre. At President Brigham Sadly, Clory does not experience a satisfying love Young’s counsel, Clory marries Abijah, the man with her husband, not so much because his other whom Clory knows as her father; he is not her bio- wife stands in their way, but because her husband logical father, but he is a formidable father-figure, never really gives a part of himself to her. nonetheless. This is Freud’s Electra complex gone Although Abijah could have done more to miti- wrong, with Clory literally replacing her stepmother gate the strain between his wives, this certainly and becoming her father’s wife. Unfortunately for does not mean Sheba does not contribute more the characters, Abijah is unable to recognize Clory than her fair share to the hostile marital relation- as a wife because he knows her too well as a child. ship. Angry and hurt, Sheba arms herself with bit- Not quite a wife and not quite a daughter, he terness, jealousy, and manipulation. Reflecting on instead comes to regard Clory as an enchantress or her step-daughter’s marriage to her husband, Sheba seductress, thereby allowing himself to satiate his thinks to herself, “What kind of God was it who physical desires without the shame of feeling inces- could betray such long generous mothering with tuous. Clory’s role as his paramour, however, is not that scene at the Endowment House? . . . And blind the equivalent of being his wife and partner. Abijah with suffering, she had placed that child’s hand in rarely extends her the support and respect he gives his and waited for his second kiss” (105). With this to Sheba. After her marriage, Clory’s place in the thought, the reader glimpses the depth of Sheba’s family unit is in limbo, and she is well aware of suffering and vulnerability. She feels deeply betrayed that. When discussing her status in the family com- by both Abijah and Clory. Although Sheba is brusque pared to Sheba’s, Clory says to Pal, “But see, that’s and demanding, she loves them both; to be replaced it; I’m neither his child nor his wife” (156). Abijah by a girl she raised and nutured (and to have her

188 Three Against One: The True Antagonist in The Giant Joshua husband be so eager about it) was no doubt devas- Clory comes to Sheba’s home, hoping for some flour tating. Clory is vivacious and young and beautiful. because she and her daughter, Kissy, are hungry, She is all of the things Sheba used to be, but is not Abijah brushes her aside with a casual remark about anymore. Clory is the kind of girl Sheba is proud the Lord not letting them starve. Sick with depri- to call her daughter, but resentful and jealous of as vation and want, Clory snaps, “Oh, darn Apostle a sister-wife. The comparison between Clory and Snow . . . I want bread—milk for my baby!” (378). herself is painful. Interestingly, Sheba is arguably She is promptly scolded for speaking against the more angry at Abijah for his third marriage than authorities and must return to her own home with- she is at Clory. “It was all very well for Abijah to . . . out any flour. Clory is not permitted to express her remind her that polygamy was holy . . . the light in anger, frustration, loneliness, fear, or even her hunger, Abijah’s eyes was sometimes far from holy . . . there because the Saints are not supposed to grumble. just wasn’t much he could fool her about” (5). Sheba They should constantly be focused on humbling never suggests it, but Abijah probably could have themselves and trusting more in God. Unfortu- made a convincing argument against marrying Clory nately for Clory, this translates into not just tem- on the grounds that he was her father, adopted, pering her appetites, but denying them altogether. yes, but still her father, and therefore not an appro- In doing so, she denies a vital part of herself—the priate choice for a husband. He did not make such thinking, feeling, wondering, yearning, searching, an argument against the marriage because he simply hoping, truthful part of herself. did not want to, and Sheba knows it all too well. Clory is forced to share her husband with two She does not make Abijah the primary target of her other women, one of whom hates her, engaged in a bitterness, though—partly because she loves him never-ending battle with the land for her survival, so much, thinks of him in “complete surrender” and constantly repressing her emotions. The reader (148) and does not want to lose any more of him cannot help but ask, Why is Clory doing all of this? than she already has, and partly because Clory is Why does she stay? What is she hoping to gain? an easier target. Repressing her anger and sadness Whipple never answers these questions. Clory is towards Abijah, Sheba allows her emotions to leak ambivalent about her feelings regarding the Church. out and wash over everyone else around her. Throughout the novel, no one asks her if she believes Subsequently, after her marriage to Abijah, it is the gospel is true. She never bears testimony (and almost impossible for Clory to find any sanctuary neither does anyone else for that matter, not even with her adopted family (except with Willie). Her Pal or Willie or Apostle Snow) that she knows the polygamous marriage does not bring glory and Lord is mindful of her and loves her and that she is holy honor, but loneliness and regret. willing to bear all things for Him. If her decisions Clory also is caught between the rigid expecta- had been based on a deep and abiding faith in God, tions of the Mormon community and her own at the very least the sacrifices would be personally individual nature. The St. George Saints adhered meaningful. But Clory has doubts; she does not to strict standards that regulated their manner of know what she believes or even if she believes that work, leisure, dress, worship, and behavior. Reli- the gospel is true. The sacrifices, then, are unneces- gion permeated every aspect and nuance of their sary at best, absurd at worst, because there is no lives. Clory loved pretty clothes and bright colors, plausible reasoning behind them. It is a long tragic but Abijah believed they were unseemly for a proper waste of a life as Clory is broken down, bit by bit Mormon wife. Clory expressed herself in song and and piece by piece, for nothing. laughter, laughter that was too loud, according to In order to be a most effective antagonist against Abijah, and singing that was too merry for a good Clory’s strength of character, all three elements of Latter-day Saint. She is not even allowed to com- polygamy, raw land, and religion were needed. Clory’s plain about her circumstances without violating spirit, her vitality, and her optimism would have Mormon expectations of humility and faith. When sustained her against just the harshness of the land or

189 AML Annual 2004 just the difficulties of living in a plural marriage her and loves her. If God had been real to her, her or just her uncertainty about her religion. If, for situation still would have been difficult, but bear- example, she was called to be Abijah’s plural wife able because she would have believed it was mean- and the family stayed in the Salt Lake Valley, not ingful. Finally, if Abijah had been more willing to only would Clory have been able to avoid the con- think of her instead of only himself, and/or if stant fight with the land for food and shelter, she Sheba had been able to discipline herself to be just would have had the beauty and the culture of the a little softer with Clory, the security of a family city as an outlet for her creative needs. This creative working together and loving each other would have expression would not have eradicated her need for offset her depressing circumstances of little food, a loving husband and family, but it would have isolation, and ambivalence regarding religion. eased her suffering because it would have fulfilled There is safety and peace in being loved as part of a her longing for beauty and refinement. On the family, and Clory had little of either one. other hand, if she had come to St. George with an Sadly, there was no relief for Clory as she was unshakable faith in the Lord, she could have turned assaulted on all three levels of her person; the mind, to Father in Heaven for comfort and inspiration in the body, and the spirit. The three commanding and the face of her loneliness and discouragement as a demanding forces of polygamy, religion, and land plural wife in a hostile land. There is strength in join hands and circle Clory MacIntyre, picking up one’s convictions, and Clory never has this strength where one left off, filling in all the white space of because God is a nebulous “Great Smile” to her, her life that might have been overlooked, until they not a person she can depend on because He knows overwhelmed and consumed her, and she finally dies.

190 Holiness Emerging from My Mouth

Jacqueline Osherow

robably the most valuable thing that ever hap- your mouth. Of course you get distracted: you notice Ppened to me as a poet was that when I was fifteen somebody’s purple silk outfit or catch sight of some- years old at Jewish summer camp and complaining one you have to remember to talk to before you that I, as a girl, wasn’t permitted to chant Torah leave. But there are times when the words coming someone said to me: “What difference does it make? out of my mouth so fiercely claim my attention Even if we let you, you wouldn’t know how.” Need- that I’m absolutely astonished to look up and be less to say, I learned how. And I eventually moved where I am. I’ll chant with no consciousness what- to Utah, where there just weren’t that many people ever that I’m chanting. I’m too busy listening. Or who had this particular skill. So I found myself reading. Or I’m not there at all. There are only the chanting from the Torah quite a bit, as well as from words. the Prophets, not to mention yearly gigs doing This of course is analogous to the kind of expe- Jonah, Lamentations, Song of Songs, Ruth, and rience in poetry writing that gave rise to the notion Ecclesiastes. As you might imagine, when you go of a muse, of being so absorbed in words that you over these texts again and again, they seep into simply won’t be able to recover how they arrived on your consciousness. And the more closely I attended the page or screen in front of you, an experience to the Hebrew Bible, the more I realized what I of listening rather than producing. What I want to should already have known: there was a reason explain is that, for me, this experience becomes people thought these were holy words. This was confused with chanting from the Bible. I find myself my great good fortune in life. Here was the best constantly having to reckon with the text’s inter- writing I’d ever encountered. And it wasn’t some- vention in so much of what I have to say. one else’s. It was mine. I never think of myself as appropriating these One thing we poets can do—oblivious as we texts. How could I appropriate what was already often are to the world around us—is to concentrate mine? Besides, by the time I get through with them, on our poems. Indeed, sometimes I think that’s all few real believers in Torah would even recognize writing poetry is—ridiculously intense concentra- them. But whatever I do, the Bible’s part in it never tion. This is also—at its best—what chanting is. strikes me as optional. Its phrases and emblems and There you are, uttering aloud for the entire con- stories are too intimately tangled up in what it means gregation these unbelievably affecting words. Even for me to utter anything. if you don’t believe in God, even if seventy-five per- What has changed lately is that I’ve decided, cent of the people in the synagogue aren’t paying self-consciously, to leave these biblical appearances attention, babies are crying, kids are running up a little less to chance, to see what happens when I and down the aisles—there you are, with a silver take on the Bible directly instead of just waiting for pointer in your hand and holiness emerging from it to show up. The other effect all this chanting has

191 AML Annual 2004 had on me was that it made me decide to start of these poets I adored were influenced by the Psalms, teaching a course in the Hebrew Bible as literature. I was utterly amazed to discover, upon reading the I came up with what I thought were some pretty King James Psalms, how much some of these poets ingenious readings when I was going over and over had incorporated what, for them at least, was the all those texts. And who was going to listen to them? Psalms’ actual language. My psalms—the things I’d “Well”—as I said to my first crop of students, a sung as a child in synagogue—were actually the bunch of Mormon kids who’d been on missions, stuff of Herbert, Donne, Hopkins and, of course, where they could read nothing but the Bible and my beloved Dickinson. They were the place where the Book of Mormon for two years and definitely the two traditions out of which I was writing actu- knew the letter of the text better than I did—“You ally came together. are.” They’d laugh—not an easy thing to get a room The thing to do, to become a real-life English full of Mormons to do—but they had no idea what language Jewish poet, was to take on these psalms they were in for. in my own poems. Of course the project did give Neither, as it turned out, did I. I’d never really me pause. Who was I to take on the Psalms? But, read the Bible in English. Of course I’d looked at what can I say? I was nearing forty. You either tried translations because I was too lazy to work out a to write poetry or you didn’t. And who knew? Maybe complicated syntax or the vocabulary was too hard I would rise to the Psalms’ occasion. And if I didn’t, or I didn’t trust the meaning I came up with, but I well, I would at least get to spend a lot of time por- always tried to read the text in Hebrew. When ing over the Psalms. The experience, if nothing I taught my course, I read the King James for the else, made me dizzily fearless. Now I’m taking on first time. You can’t imagine my astonishment. I all kinds of people: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea. Call it do, after all, write poetry in the English language. Midrash if you want. Call it self-indulgence. I’m I am not impervious to its charms. And while I having a terrific time. obviously knew on some abstract level that many

192 Writing Religion from a Christian Perspective

David McGlynn

hen I was in college, I earned money by dinner, my stepmother admonished me. “No one Wteaching swimming to the children of the could tell that you were a Christian when you read university professors. I was on the university swim that,” she said. team, the work was easy, and I liked the kids. By “I didn’t write a story about Christians,” I said. the end of the summer, I had begun to visualize a “The story is about swimming with a genius.” story. The story was autobiographical, with a twist. “So you sold out to win a contest,” she fired The protagonist was a young swimming instructor back. much like me, at a Southern California university My stepmother was—and is—the most pas- much like my own. The story’s pupil, however, was sionate Christian I have ever met. Each morning nothing like the ridilin-dazed children who popu- she wakes up before dawn to read the Bible and to lated my classes and private lessons; this student pray. Professionally, she is a children’s pastor and was a nine-year-old genius, the son of two profes- her two primary goals in life are to “lead children sors. I worked on the story for most of the fall and to Christ” and to “teach them to lead others to Christ.” in the spring of my senior year; I entered it in a She has always been a strong presence in my life, university fiction contest. To my surprise, it won. and while my own Christian faith does not exactly I was invited to read the story at a reception for the mirror hers, I have never been able to simply dis- winners. Proud of myself and eager for praise, regard her challenges. I called my father and stepmother, told them the After dinner, I went home and thought over good news, and invited them to the reception. “Light what she had said. Before long I began to worry. refreshments will be served,” I told my father. I did not want to disavow or hide my faith, but did “Plenty of cookies.” that mean that as a Christian, I was obligated to “Great!” my father said. “I love cookies. We’ll write exclusively about Christian subjects? Say I be there.” did write about religious faith, did that mean my The story contained a small scene in which the stories should avoid direct references and indirect swimming instructor and his friends drive past innuendoes to those desires or activities that fell the San Onofre nuclear power station. The narra- outside the circle of Christian propriety? Should all tor sees the two domed reactor towers and cannot my stories end in a kind of religious redemption? resist the urge to describe them as “tits.” (At that This problem is not easily solved and has plagued point in my life, nothing thrilled me more than me now for some time. How could I write about being mildly profane in front of a crowd.) When I the religious world that I had grown up in and around read the line I did not look up. Even still, I could from an insider’s perspective, while simultaneously feel my stepmother wince. That weekend, over accounting for the sordidly beautiful activities that

193 AML Annual 2004 my Christian people reject as sinful? I was dissatis- quickly. In order to write about a character’s rela- fied with the ways that many novels or stories or tionship to the supernatural, to God, we have to films worked this problem out, portraying Chris- understand their intimate relationship to their per- tians as sexist, racist, backwoods hypocrites, or else sonal shortcomings, to their failures. It is not enough strange mystics removed from the ins and outs of for me to say, “Joe is a drunk” or “Susie is an adul- daily living. Such works always end up seeming terer”; I have to understand why they did what to me like late-night episodes of Inside Edition, they did, what need their sin promised to fulfill and trafficking in conspiracies, exposés, and spectacles, the extent to which that sin fulfilled or failed to ful- and hardly ever providing honest representations fill them. of religion in the lives of modern people searching In Burning Down the House, Charles Baxter for happiness. expresses a similar sentiment: Fortunately, the same laws that apply to secular Sometimes—if we are writers—we have to folks apply to the faithful, and no new literature talk to our characters. We have to try to per- needs to be forged to describe or explore contem- suade them to do what they’ve only imagined porary religious faith. Anyone honest with him- or doing. We have to nudge but not force them herself—religious or not—would admit that he toward situations where they will get into inter- or she is, in fact, hypocritical, as well as flawed and esting trouble, where they will make interest- fallen, a creature of desire and habit and choice. All ing mistakes that they may take responsibility humans attempt to live by certain principles and for. When we allow our characters to make mis- then spend much of their lives navigating their takes, we release them from the grip of our consistent failure to be as principled as they would own authorial narcissism. That’s wonderful for like. Religion names the failure to adhere to our them, it’s wonderful for us, but it’s best of all principles as “sin,” thus structuring in a second for the story. (Baxter, 15) layer of moral responsibility to humankind and to The same applies to “Christian” writing, I think. God. Nonetheless, it is a very human thing we are But let me emphasize Baxter’s point a little more talking about, this process of sin and the need for strongly. We cannot simply talk to our characters redemption. in a distanced conversation—as we would a student Writing about redemption is difficult, especially or a telemarketer. We have to talk to them like we’re in contemporary society, because so much of the in bed with them, and even more than that, we world denies religion as a viable means of redemp- have to talk to them as though we are them. Only tion. Flannery O’Connor writes in Mystery and when I begin to understand the humanness behind Manners, “The supernatural is an embarrassment a character’s sin will I begin to visualize the circum- today even to many churches. The naturalistic bias stances of his or her redemption. And because reli- has so well saturated our society that the reader gion and the supernatural is so difficult a subject, doesn’t realize that he has to shift his sights to read the target of much skepticism, I am obligated to fiction which treats of an encounter with God” penetrate the characters that much more deeply, (163). I know what O’Conner means. In my own to make their motivations that much more real. If experience as a writer and as a Christian, I have the nonreligious reader disagrees with my charac- observed that many people—many Christians in ter’s movement toward God, that’s fine; if she fact—do not believe that sins can be atoned for doesn’t believe the character could have felt that vicariously. Thus any movement toward God in a way, I have a problem. piece of fiction is often looked at as sentimental, My stepmother used to tell me that Jesus did cheap, or a deus ex machina. And in religious writ- not die for Sin, with a capital S, but for each of our ing it becomes precisely those things, so long as we individual sins; that as he suffered on the cross, he let our characters off too easy or judge them too understood each of our individual sins, what it was

194 Writing Religion from a Christian Perspective like to be us. She cries sometimes when she thinks of it, and that is beautiful. It turns out that writing is redemptive in exactly the same way. Writers, reli- gious or not, must push past generalities and sym- bols and metaphors and instead delve purely into the inner-lives of their characters to understand their particular temptations and their particular sins, and from their Godlike perches above their half- composed pages, writers must find the strength to sympathize with each person they breathe life into, learn from them, and, in the end, give them peace.

195 The Power of Parables

Sarah Read

would like to begin with a quotation from a Crossan develops his theory around the story IUtah Mormon visual artist, Brian Kershisnik, form of the parable. Parables, remember, as story, are which succinctly states how my faith informs my part of our raft of language. Parables, in a literary purposes as a writer: “It [art] is a rip in the sea of sense, Crossan claims, function oppositely from the other world, where a purer reality leaks out, myth. While myths build up and create the world intentionally or not. An artist is someone who can for our understanding (think of the creation give that leak a shape.” That is, first and foremost, myth, for example), parables challenge and break a writer, a poet, a painter, any artist can choose by down our expected views of the world (for example, faith to be present and awake to these rips or rup- think of Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan tures in the fabric of this world in order to give when, unexpectedly, the first person to give aid to shape, through his or her medium, to this purer the traveler is a Samaritan, a socio-religious outcast, reality from the “other world.” an outsider, someone least likely to be helpful). This “other world” is what theologian John Crossan says that “parables give God room. . . . Dominic Crossan, in his short book The Dark They are stories which shatter the deep structure of Interval: Towards a Theology of Story (Niles, IL: our accepted world. . . . They remove our defenses Argus Communications, 1975; rpt., Sonoma, CA: and make us vulnerable to God. It is only in such Polebridge Press, 1988), refers to as the transcen- experiences that God can touch us, and only in dent and, explicitly, as God. He discusses a theo- such moments does the Kingdom of God arrive. logy of story which allows for the transcendent to My own term for this is transcendence” (100). be made present and experienced through lan- Yes, transcendence. Through language and story guage. Imagine that all we can know is language. If we can experience transcendence, the movement of this is the case, then as people of faith we can the raft, and, as poets and writers and artists, in the believe that God is either created by our language, words of Kershisnik, we can give shape to this leak and thus an idol of our own creation, or that God of the “other world.” is outside of language, and thus transcendent. I would like to conclude my remarks by read- Consider, then, that language is an imagined raft ing an excerpt from a short story that I have writ- upon which we travel across the open sea. If the ten, “Witness”: a story about rupture, a story, in a raft which keeps us dry is language, then that certain sense, about parable: which is outside of the raft, the sea, is the transcen- Terry opens the front door, which isn’t dent. In the up-and-down movement of the raft on locked, and turns into the living room where the sea we can know and experience the transcen- her husband, Richard, stands facing away dent. Most simply, in the movement of language from her with his boot on the cat’s spine. She we can experience the transcendent. freezes in place. She knows that she must not

197 AML Annual 2004

impose on the scene in front of her. The sur- and uncomfortable lurch forward. Richard leans prise of her presence will either force Richard’s some more. The cat can’t even lurch. It is pinned. boot down harder on the cat or release it and It yowls, moans like an unhappy cat. Richard off-balance Richard and send him toppling over will have to pass through this stage quickly backwards to crack his head open on the sharp before it gets to him. He will have to silence corner of the coffee table. She sees the reckon- the cat quickly or he will stop leaning. He ing in the scene before her, man’s boot on cat’s presses on his boot on the cat and the cat stops spine. Richard is alive, she imagines, as she felt moaning and is still, its eyes wide open. It is alive as she gave birth to the boys. Life passed alive and so is he. He has broken out of the through her then as it passes under Richard here. dead world into one where he is totally alive. Nausea rises again in Terry’s throat. It was Where only decisions that matter are made. . . . she who brought Spice home from the shelter From the doorway, Terry wants to say on Lenny’s first birthday, a ginger fur ball for “Richard.” She wants, now, to announce her the baby to chase and pet. Terry thinks of the presence. To make herself witness to the event. minutes which preceded this one, the ones before Just “Richard” she will say. I am witness to this her unexpected early arrival: Richard coming rupture. You cannot do what I cannot see. She into the living room on the way to his work- presses her face against the scene, as if she presses shop, seeing the cat asleep on the floor, the cat’s her face against the bars of a cell. Her eyes widen spine long and elegantly arced, exposed against and water, they move across the bars. Waves of the thick carpet. Something moving in him or compassion rise and swell across her face. occurring to Richard; the ordinary domestic Everything is possible. I am here. She projects scene of Richard passing through their living herself, empties herself into the living room, as room, a room strewn with the toys of their if she could envelop Richard and bring him to three boys, rupturing, tearing for an instant long her. And as if she also lies prostrate before the enough to turn the otherwise wholly expected scene, she moans, inwardly, at her own hum- scene into an extraordinary one; a new way of bling. I cannot name even my own life. When seeing, doing, taking hold, shifting in the other I do, as I did moments ago, when I am satisfied Richard that Terry knows from this morning: with my life, that is when I beg for change, for Now, rather than stepping over the sleeping cat this rupture. That I should come home and on his way to his workshop, he can step on the find my son’s cat close to death on the floor. cat; not walk over the cat as if the cat were a Terry remains in the doorway and Richard’s stepping stone on the path to his workshop, boot remains on the cat. Richard has a choice but to step on the cat for the purpose of step- to make. He alone can decide which is the right ping on the cat. To step on the cat as if the cat, one. If he removes his boot he is cruel. He has stretched out in its perfect catlike way, is meant inflicted pain and suffering for no purpose. He to be stepped on. Today, unlike any other day, has inflicted pain and suffering only to remove Richard entered the living room not to pass it again. If he lowers the boot he is a coward, through on his way to his shop of woodwork- too cowardly to take his cruelty away, to give ing tools, but to stay, and to put his boot on away his sense of entitlement to finishing what the spine of the cat which now lies, ready, at he has put in motion, however horrible; this his feet. sense of entitlement which grew as he endured Richard sets his boot over the cat’s back. At the cat’s suffering, the deep throated moans; the first his boot hangs there, lightly caressing the sense of entitlement which grew from the endur- fur of the sleeping cat. He dares himself to lean ing of his own torture during the last few his weight forward onto the cat, to think of moments. He wants clear choices, but not like the cat as a piece of the floor. He eggs himself these. It is he who needs to be saved from the on. He leans. The cat wakes up and rises under- wretched cat. neath his boot. It wants to get away from what woke it up. It wants to go into the kitchen for some food but it can’t move more than a slight

198 The Threat of Mormon Cinema

Gideon O. Burton

ormon films are arriving, and Mormon read- invention of the printing press. Victor Hugo docu- Mers had better pay attention. Mormon litera- mented the threat of the printed word to the estab- ture has taken the last thirty years to achieve its lishment in his Notre Dame de Paris. In a revealing now respectable stride, but in the last three years moment, the archdeacon Dom Claude points to Mormon celluloid has come careening into the one of these newly printed books with one hand culture as fast as a car chase sequence and perhaps and with the other, to the magnificent Notre as recklessly. Whatever we may think of its begin- Dame cathedral in Paris, and says ominously, nings, we have not seen its end. “This will kill that” (190). Perhaps we must face the fact that in the cul- Printing did not kill religion but it completely tural economy of today, the motion picture has reshaped it. Indeed, as Eisenstein and others have more capital than literature. I know I did not want pointed out, printing was a cultural revolution. No to face that fact as I sat on the lawn of the Doheny longer could authority be centered in the literal library of the University of Southern California in church or in the narratives told by priests or by the spring of 1994. In cap and gown, ready to stained glass windows. Protestantism and democ- receive my Ph.D. in literature, I was upstaged by racy were made possible not just by ideas, but by George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg, who were the new form in which religious and political receiving honorary doctoral degrees. In his speech, notions were replicated and distributed. University President Stephen Sample rhapsodized While I do not believe that “this [the medium that film had become more significant than Shake- of film] will destroy that [literature],” I do believe speare. Having just finished five years of studies in that we who take literature seriously must take film Renaissance literature, I found myself a bit ruffled seriously as well. As the book once was to the by this remark. And now, as an academic in an cathedral, the film has become to the book. It is English department—one of the guardians of the more popular and may prove more broadly influ- literary tradition—I twinge each time a student ential. Indeed, when I teach Shakespeare I must rents the video instead of reading the book. I think come prepared to talk with the students about there is an entire generation that has grown up Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo or Mel Gibson as believing that Moses and Nefretiri are one of the Hamlet, because that is what they know. We must greatest love stories inscribed in holy writ. be prepared to deal with the cinematic realization Popular media have a way of shaking estab- of Mormon stories, for that is what both LDS and lished traditions by changing the terms of cultural non-Mormon audiences will increasingly know commerce, establishing new patterns for how and believe. The last quarter century has seen a stories are conceived, retold, and understood. It great rise in the publication of Mormon imagina- happened, for example, in Europe following the tive literature, but with so many Mormon films

199 AML Annual 2004 recently out or in development, the day is not far years, and how many such films are now in the off when Mormon cinema may be the front door works: to Mormon literature, and not an interesting In March 2000 Richard Dutcher’s God’s Army sideshow. ushered in the era of the independent, commer- Of course, Mormon movies have been around cially released Mormon feature film. Dutcher’s almost since the inception of the medium—if one story of Mormon mission life was the first success- counts institutional films produced and distrib- ful commercially released Mormon feature; it was uted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day not the first. That honor goes to Lester Card, Saints. Institutional Mormon film is an important grandfather to Orson Scott Card. At the dawn of tradition not to be ignored. It has influenced mil- the talkies (1931), Card produced Corianton, a lions of viewers—from those who witnessed Man’s Book of Mormon–based film that tried, Hollywood- Search for Happiness at the 1964 World’s Fair in style, to leverage the sensationalism of scriptural New York, to those who have cried (and laughed) adultery into commercial success, but it only at filmstrip presentations of Johnny Lingo, to the succeeded in offending its Mormon audience and most recent Temple Square visitors who see Testa- failing its investors.2 Dutcher’s success was a com- ments. This is a rich cinematic legacy. Though mercial one: he proved that Mormon audiences fraught with many imperfections and aesthetic were ready to pay to see Mormon stories at their embarrassments, institutional Mormon film has local theater. In April 2001 Dutcher’s next film progressed in breadth and sophistication and is an appeared, a small-town murder mystery called intimate part of our cultural history stretching Brigham City. This movie has earned less money back a half century.1 but more critical acclaim than Dutcher’s inaugural Mormon films made independently from the effort. Perhaps more importantly, with Brigham institutional church have already been well estab- City Dutcher pushed further into the frontiers of lished in the direct to video market. Of particular LDS theatrical distribution. His production com- note is the success of “Mormon Anime,” scores of pany, Zion Films, promoted the film partly through animated films by LDS filmmakers, many of which volunteer “street teams” that help in promoting the are explicitly LDS in subject matter. Living Scrip- movie within their local areas.3 tures, founded in 1974 by former Disney animator The Dutcher franchise will continue with a Richard Rich and Jared Brown, has now produced biopic of Joseph Smith. In the meantime, however, at least thirty-five half-hour animated films, half of more and more audiences will have the chance to which are based on the Book of Mormon or LDS view additional LDS film offerings. In December Church history or leaders. 2001 The Other Side of Heaven opened, an adapta- Mormon cinema might justly include the work tion of Elder John H. Groberg’s missionary memoir, of LDS filmmakers with little or no explicit Mor- In the Eye of the Storm (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, mon content. Literally hundreds of Mormons have 1993). Produced by Jerry Molen (a line producer been directing, writing, and producing films for Schindler’s List and a member of Stephen Spiel- (many quite famous or award-winning) since the berg’s team for other pictures), this missionary dawn of film. Mormons are no strangers to the cin- story is largely blanched of its specifically Mormon ematic arts. content in order to accommodate a larger national However, the benchmark of achieving an eth- distribution. Its production value and look fits the nic cinema in our own right seems to be the extent Hollywood adventure movie with its exotic loca- to which those within Mormon culture produce tion in Tonga and its dramatic special effects, while and sustain theatrically released feature films. This its inspirational subject matter largely shies away has been the great innovation of Mormon cinema from tensions and content customary to main- at the opening of the new millennium. Consider stream films. A $7 million budget and word of how much has been done in just the last three much more than this for marketing suggests that

200 The Threat of Mormon Cinema serious money is now behind Mormon cinematic update one of the earliest and most popular works storytelling. of Mormon literature (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, The Singles Ward, the first Mormon romantic 1980). Currently in post-production, this film was comedy to hit the big screen, appeared in January announced for release in spring 2002 but may be 2001. Unlike its predecessors, The Singles Ward is jockeying for position behind the successful Singles so overtly Mormon in its language, mores, and Ward and The Other Side of Heaven. Also announced celebrity cameos that it is doubtful of any success for theatrical release in 2002 is Handcart, due to beyond Mormon audiences. However, it has so appear, significantly, on July 24th. Produced by thoroughly pleased its Mormon audience that this Ampersand Films and directed by Kels Goodman, relatively inexpensive film ($400,000) is likely to Handcart builds upon Goodman’s experience doc- ensure that its producer, Halestorm Entertain- umenting the Mormon pioneer crossing during its ment, will go ahead with its two follow-up films sesquicentennial celebration in 1997.4 that appear to have similar parameters, The R.M. The first in a series of Mormon-themed IMAX and Church Ball. Also of note with this film is its films is projected for release in 2002 as well. Mor- close tie-ins to Mormon culture. LDSSingles.com mons have been heavily involved for years in mak- coproduced the film, providing a lighthearted fan- ing films for the large format theater, but Safe tasy version on the big screen of the real-life social Passage will be the first overtly Mormon IMAX service they offer by subscription on a smaller production.5 A heavyweight team of successful screen. The Singles Ward also hit the mark with a LDS filmmakers are bringing the epic story of soundtrack updating Church hymns and Primary Lehi’s journey to the promised land to an epic- songs in a variety of lively pop formats that is sized exhibition venue (Steven DeVore, Scott bound to help sell the movie and to resell the idea Swofford, Quinn Coleman, Peter Johnson, and that Mormons relish the familiar repackaged in Reed Smoot). popular trappings. In addition to these films, dozens of other films Four more Mormon films are due for commer- are announced or in development. Stone Forest cial release in 2002. Out of Step, a story about a Pictures has announced its intention to film Black Mormon girl from Utah becoming a dancer in Stars over Mexico, an adaptation of the book by New York City, is directed by Ryan Little. Little Susan Evans McCloud about children growing up (who did cinematography for The Singles Ward) is in the Mormon colonies of Mexico. It is intended one of the best recent graduates of BYU’s film pro- for release as a TV movie of the week. Halestorm gram, having directed The Last Good War, which Entertainment (The Singles Ward) has slated The earned a college Emmy as best dramatic film in R.M. for production, about a missionary who 1999. Out of Step lacked the marketing savvy of returns to find his job and his girlfriend are gone. Excel Entertainment (distributor for Dutcher’s Their Church Ball is also announced and sounds films and for The Other Side of Heaven) or the promising (provided the content does not require a street-marketing of Zion Films and has apparently rating that would restrict most LDS viewers!). come and gone from theaters without much Tony Kushner’s controversial play about AIDS and notice. Here is strong evidence that Mormon fea- Mormons, Angels in America, has been slated for ture films will not automatically succeed commer- production by HBO with famed director Mike cially because their predecessors have done so Nichols (The Graduate) and starring Al Pacino, unless there are adequate resources for marketing, Meryl Streep, and Emma Thompson.6 distribution, and exhibition. Some films in the works are by LDS authors More BYU film graduates are responsible for whose literary works have earned them national the second Mormon romantic comedy/drama attention, though the properties in development appearing in 2002, Charly. Micah Merrill and Adam are not explicitly Mormon. These include adapta- Anderegg have worked with Jack Weyland to tions of plays and novels by Orson Scott Card

201 AML Annual 2004

(Ender’s Game, recently courted but ultimately film critics. An L.A. Times critic applauded God’s passed over by Miramax), Kenny Kemp (I Hated Army; a Chicago film critic argued that Dutcher’s Heaven), Neil LaBute (The Shape of Things), Walter Brigham City deserved broader distribution; Kirn (Thumbsucker), and Brady Udall (The Miracle renowned national film critic Michael Medved Life of Edgar Mint). Curtis Taylor, who co-authored gave a glowing review of God’s Army and strong Embraced by the Light with Betty Eadie, is working praise for The Other Side of Heaven.9 Mormonism on a sort of Mormon American Graffiti, titled is coming out of obscurity as a culture with its own American Grace, to feature Richard Dutcher acting stories and storytelling due to independent Mor- in a coming-of-age story set in Modesto California mon film. It is creating a new, larger audience for in 1973.7 Author Dean Hughes (Children of the Mormon stories than has been possible through Promise and Hearts of the Children LDS historical official channels or through direct-to-video pro- fiction series) and playwright Doug Stewart (Sat- ductions. Rather than destroying Mormon litera- urday’s Warrior) are both working on adaptations of ture, Mormon film may in fact be creating a larger their writings to film, also.8 and more legitimate space for Mormon storytelling There are almost weekly announcements of in general, and this will benefit Mormon authors new film projects by or about Mormons, many whose works are not intended for the screen. The of which are now intended to be commercial fea- content or quality of independent Mormon cine- ture releases. Thomas C. Baggaley’s filmographies matic fare is not wholly satisfactory, of course; but at LDSfilm.com are an invaluable resource for all vital trailblazing is being done in terms of distribu- those wishing to stay abreast of every aspect of tion, exhibition, and the creation of a broader Mormons in film. audience. Not all of the films listed here will be widely The film industry is always hungry for mate- distributed and commercially profitable, but Mor- rial, and Mormon authors are already supplying mon cinema is increasingly targeting that achieve- their works for screenplays. Many of the current or ment. As filmmakers gradually reach and sustain a projected Mormon films are adaptations of Mor- viable market for Mormon-oriented productions, mon literature (In the Eye of the Storm, Charly, this will put Mormon movie-making on the map Black Stars over Mexico, The Miracle Life of Edgar in a different way than it has been to date. Institu- Mint, I Hated Heaven, Hearts of the Children, and tional LDS film and the niche marketing of LDS the Book of Mormon). Maurine Whipple’s Giant videotapes reach many audiences, but for Mormon Joshua, one of the first and greatest Mormon novels, films to show up in the multiplexes of the malls of has been optioned and pitched around Hollywood America carves out a place for LDS culture within for years. the larger culture that it has not yet enjoyed (or Mormons are also busy writing screenplays. perhaps endured). This will increasingly cause There is a long history of Mormon-authored Holly- some eerie juxtapositions, to be sure. The week wood productions going back to Waldemar Young, that I saw The Other Side of Heaven at a theater in Brigham Young’s grandson, whose screenplay for Provo, The Singles Ward was showing a few doors The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) was nominated down, and between them, the new Britney Spears for an Oscar. Mormon screenwriters are respon- movie and a vampire flick. In making company sible for such well-known films as The Absent with the entire range of popular movie fare, Mor- Minded Professor (Samuel Taylor, 1961), Where the mon stories and Mormon culture will be read (for Red Fern Grows (Doug Stewart, 1974), and more better and for worse) against whatever else has recently Galaxy Quest (David Howard, 1999). It been popularized on film in the larger culture. This may surprise some, but Mormons have written is already proving to be the case as Mormon cin- screenplays for films with stronger material unlikely ema is showing up not just at hundreds of screens to find approval among most Latter-day Saints, across the country, but on the radar of national including Natural Born Killers (David Veloz,

202 The Threat of Mormon Cinema

1994); Neil Labute’s In the Company of Men (1997) proven satisfactory in the past. Unlike Mormonism and Nurse Betty (2000, recipient of the Cannes itself, Mormon cinema (either institutionally or Film Festival Best Screenplay award). In 1997 commercially) is not attempting a radical revision another Mormon screenwriter was nominated for of the world. Another way to put this is that Mor- a screenwriting Oscar, Mark Andrus (for As Good mon cinema—both institutional and independent As It Gets; see also his Life as a House, 2001). varieties—does not live up to the liberalism of our We have yet to see a flowering of successful own theology. We have yet for there to be any sub- Mormon screenwriting of overtly Mormon mate- stantive discussion of religion and film relative to rial, although there are those working towards this the Mormon faith, but we should, and this should besides filmmakers. A new series has been announced guide film production and reception. If literary by Dennis Packard at BYU called Novels for the critics do not come forward to meet the coming of Next Great Films, of which My People, by Gordon Mormon cinema, applying meaningful theoretical Laws, is the first book. These are short, visually ori- frameworks that respect Mormon history and ented novels that purposefully read like screenplays theology, then the shaping of Mormon cinema will and, based on the strength of Laws’ story about a be left to informal journalistic reviews and to the gang member Latter-day Saint, may yet prove untrustworthy currents of commercial forces. worth filming. I hope we will be up to the task of adding Mormon Further evidence that Mormon film will com- film criticism to Mormon literary criticism. The plement, not undermine, Mormon literature comes health of the growing Mormon presence in popu- in the form of novelizations. Richard Dutcher’s lar culture may depend upon it. God’s Army has spawned the first of at least three novelizations of the film, each to be written from This paper was presented at the 2002 AML conference. the point of view of a different character from the film. The first, by Orson Scott Card’s son Geoffrey NOTES Card, appeared in 2001. Dutcher has asked well- 1. See my “Making Mormon Cinema: Hype and known Mormon author Marilyn Brown to author Hope,” in Art Belief and Meaning: The Visual Arts and the novelization of Brigham City, and this is a pos- the Restored Gospel, Brigham Young University Museum itive sign that there is a cooperative spirit between of Art, 30 November 2001 (http://cfac.byu.edu/moa filmmakers and established Mormon authors. The /Education/documents/Art_Belief.pdf; also at http:// energy and resources being applied to Mormon burton.byu.edu/articles/MakingMormonCinema.pdf); cinema are not being matched with comparable Peter N. Johnson, “Motion Pictures, LDS Productions,” energy in terms of the criticism of LDS motion in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Lud- pictures. I am not speaking of movie reviews, low et al., vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1992), which proliferate in newspapers and on websites 964–66; and Daniel Lund Hess, “The Evolution of when films appear. I am speaking of theoretical dis- Media in the Church Educational System of The cussion about cinema itself. I recently argued that Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (master’s Mormon cinema seems to be taking two direc- thesis, Brigham Young University, 2002). tions. The first of these is a very distinctive and 2. Orson Scott Card, “Towards a Mormon Aes- thetic,” keynote address given at the Mormon Arts Fes- familiar institutional church style of filmmaking. tival, 1995. http://www.ldsfilm.com/ar_aesthetic.html, The second (not always so distinct from the first) is accessed 12 March 2002. a Hollywood mainstream sort of cinema. Most of 3. Brigham City “Street Team,” http://www.brigham the films I have mentioned fall in this latter cate- citythemovie.com/streetteam.html, accessed 12 March gory. Each of these two style has merits; both have 2002. severe limitations artistically and perhaps spiritu- 4. See http://www.handcartthemovie.com ally. Essentially, both styles are highly conservative, 5. In September 2002 Safe Passage was retitled as keeping within tight generic bounds that have Journey to the Promised Land and changed from an

203 AML Annual 2004

IMAX to a regular-sized feature film. See details at “God’s Army Movie Review” http://www.michaelmedved LDSfilm.com, http://www.ldsfilm.com/Voice/Voice .com/cgi-bin/mdv_ifetch?medved_data+262498983 FromTheDust.html and at the movie’s website, http:// +HTML. accessed 12 March 2002. Michael Medved, www.voicefromthedust.com/ qtd. in The Other Side of Heaven Press Kit, “Advance 6. See http://www.hbo.com/films/angelsinamerica/. Praise,” http://www.ldsfilm.com/OSOH/OtherSideOf 7. See http://www.ldsfilm.com/announced/ Heaven9.html. AmericanGrace.html. 8. See details at http://www.ldsfilm.com/Sat/ SaturdaysWarrior.html and the movie’s website, http:// WORKS CITED www.saturdayswarriormovie.com/. 9. Jacqueline Bendy, “A Mormon Mission to L.A. Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Revolution in in ‘God’s Army’ (Review),” Los Angeles Times, 25 May Early Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge Uni- 2000; John Petrakis, “Serial-killer Saga ‘Brigham City’ versity Press, 1983. More Than Just Another Mormon Vanity Project,” Hugo, Victor. Notre Dame de Paris. Trans. Alban Krail- Chicago Tribune, 13 April 2001, 7; Michael Medved, sheimer. New York: Oxford, 1993.

204 Association for Mormon Letters Order Form AML Membership Includes IRREANTUM magazine subscription, book-length AML Annual, and discounted preregistration to AML events. Options for annual dues include the following: ___ Regular: $25 ___ Contributing: $50 ___ Full-time student: $20 ___ Sustaining: $100

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