George F. Richards ca. 1915
When I came across this text I laughed out loud at the anachronisms and decided I had to include it, even thought it is perhaps just a variation on the General Conference theme of caution over what we read. But then, as far as literary criticism goes, this is the subject most Mormons hear most about—so much so that today it seems to define the LDS market.
National award winning playwright Mahonri Stewart has just had two of his plays The Fading Flower and Swallow the Sun published through Zarahemla Books. Stewart, a Utah native who is now pursuing his Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing at Arizona State University, has had over a dozen over his plays produced and has won awards for his writing through the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Hale Centre Theatre, and the LDS Film Festival.
The two plays included in the volume are both about the struggles people have to find, or keep, faith. Swallow the Sun is about author C.S. Lewis, the creator of The Chronicles of Narnia and other popular books. Known as a valiant defender of Christianity, it is less known that C.S. Lewis was once an entrenched atheist. “Swallow the Sun is a story of a struggle against God,” said Stewart. “Lewis loved mythology and that sort of thing, so in a way there is a part of him that would have liked to believe. But he refused to be ‘taken in.’ However, along his path there were people like his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote Lord of the Rings, that showed him that there were thinking people, intellectuals, who believed this stuff. At first he fought them tooth and nail but, bit by bit, he started to see their reasons.”
The other play included in the volume, The Fading Flower, also addresses the struggle for faith, but from a different context. It tells the story of the family of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, years after he was murdered. The story focuses most on Emma and her little known son David Hyrum Smith, “We hear a lot about Joseph Smith III, because he tried to carry on his father’s legacy by accepting leadership in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in opposition to the LDS faith led by Brigham Young in Utah,” said Stewart. “But I think David’s story is even more interesting. He went west as a missionary for the RLDS faith, to convert us Mormons over here. But the information he found out about his father from the Utah Mormons knocked him for a loop. He started to realize that not everything his mother and brother had led him to believe may be accurate. He then set out on a search for the truth that led to him some very uncomfortable places, personally.”
The publisher supporting this volume of plays, Zarahemla Books, publishes “provocative, unconventional, yet ultimately faith-affirming stories that yield new insights into Mormon culture and humanity.” Christopher Bigelow, the publisher behind Zarahemla Books, is thrilled to have brought two of Stewart’s plays into their repertoire, “Ever since Zarahemla Books started in 2006, I’ve wanted to include Mormon drama in our offerings,” said publisher Christopher Bigelow. “Mahonri Stewart is Mormonism’s preeminent young, emerging playwright, and Zarahemla is honored to publish his work. We know readers will enjoy experiencing these plays in book form, and we hope this volume also helps pave the way for future productions of the plays.”
The Fading Flower and Swallow the Sun can be purchased at Zarahemla’s website www.zarahemlabooks.com and will also soon be available through Amazon and other booksellers.
One of the most unusual Mormon terms is Ahman, which appears twice in the Doctrine and Covenants (other than in the term Adam-ondi-ahman)—in 78:20 and 95:17. In both of these scriptures it is part of the term Son Ahman and equivalent to Christ. So, then what does Ahman mean?
Zarahemla Books hits the sweet spot again with its latest book offering, Luisa Perkins’ Dispirited. The supernatural thriller/YA dark fantasy is a worthy addition to Zarahemla’s quality library of Mormon literature, and continues to showcase the diversity Zarahemla displays on its shelf. Zarahemla is as much of a home for genre fiction, as it is high brow literary novels, as it is for personal essays, as it is for short stories, as it is now for Mormon drama (full disclosure: Zarahemla Books will be publishing a book of two of my plays in the next few weeks, as well as an anthology of Mormon Drama which I helped pull together later this Summer… but I was a big fan of ZB’s approach long before those projects). Dispirited continues Zarahemla’s big tent tradition with its blend of dark, magical realism and young adult sensibility (with a dash of the bizarre just to throw you off kilter).
Dispirited jumps right into the conflict in its first chapter when a young boy named Blake is grieving for his dead mother and so stumbles upon the ability to separate his spirit from his body (astral projection). Thus he travels to the astral plane in search for his mother. However, Blake is in for a rude awakening (or unawakening) when he tries to get back into his body, as he discovers that it has been possessed by a powerful evil spirit who has no intention of giving the poor child his body back. In the next chapter we are introduced to Cathy, years after the inciting incident. Cathy is the step sister of “Blake,” and becomes our main protagonist. The real Blake, now an exiled spirit out of his body, enlists Cathy in the battle over the possession and right to his body. And then we’re off to the races, plot wise.
I found the initial premise fascinating, partly because I felt it was plausible. I have known people (including a personal friend of mine, as well as a Wiccan who I baptized on my mission) who had claimed to have accomplished this feat of “astral planing,” where they could separate themselves from their bodies, travel in a different plane of existence, and then return to their body (although my friend from my mission claimed that she had difficulty getting back into her body, so she never attempted the experience again). As a believer in this kind of supernatural possibility, having had a few difficult to explain supernatural scenarios in my own life, Perkins had me at the get go with this initial conflict. The central premise seemed real and organic, especially from a Mormon worldview. Sometimes magical realism, from the perspective of a Mormon, simply becomes realism. (more) »
Kent’s latest Sunday Lit Crit Sermon post reminded me that I have been meaning to do a cost of Mormon literary studies post for some time.
This post assumes three things, which I think are warranted for much of the AMV readership:
The Minimum:
Irreantum Subscription/AML membership: $25
Dialogue E-Subscription: $25
Every Title That Zarahemla Books Published This Year: $50 (three titles at around $16 each*)
One Major Anthology (likely from Peculiar Pages): $25
One Other Major Mormon-Themed Work: $15
One Major Mormon-Themed Work of Nonfiction (People of Paradox, for example): $20
Subtotal = $140 (more) »
Emmeline B. Wells
What does it cost to develop a writer? Do readers bear part of that cost? If readers refuse to read anything but the best works, will authors still be able to develop? And what is the role of criticism for a developing author? While these questions are perhaps more about education than strict criticism, when they have such a large potential impact on the quality of literature its hard to see how literary criticism can ignore them entirely.
And Emmeline B. Wells did weigh in on this issue, chiefly in response to a series of complaints about there being too many books, and too few books that are worthy of careful reading. We hear these complaints today, but these complaints ignore Wells’ question in response: how do authors develop if only works of literary genius are read?
Perhaps I’ve been too influenced by politics, but I think its time to Occupy Books & Things.
The LDS mailing catalog Books & Things has announced a May “LDS Author/Artist Contest” in which visitors to their Facebook page can “vote” for their favorite author. The favorite author will then win a 1/4 page ad in the Fall issue of their catalog.
What would happen if the winner was someone that they don’t normally carry in their catalog? Someone that they don’t think is “right” for their audience?
Anyone want to play a little mischief?
Scott Hales is a literary critic, Ph.D. student, writer and all-around Mormon culture raconteur. He was one of the brains (and brawn) behind the Mormon Lit Blitz, he blogs about Mormon literature and other stuff at The Low-Tech World, and also writes for Modern Mormon Men. He just finished teaching Mormon literature to non-LDS college students and graciously agreed to an interview about the experience.
For our readers who weren’t aware of this project, tell us briefly about how you came to be teaching a unit on Mormon literature and how it fits into the overall context of the class.
About a year ago I submitted a proposal to the English department for me to teach a 200-level Topics in Literature class called “American Religious Landscapes.” The basic idea behind the class was to look at fiction that explores the ways religion attaches itself to landscapes both concrete and abstract. I had just finished an independent study on Mormon fiction for credit toward my degree, so I was looking for an excuse to try out some of my ideas about Mormon literature on a captive audience.
At the time, a lot of my ideas focused on how Mormon fiction often suggests ways to reimagine the boundaries Mormons set around themselves. So, I found myself thinking a lot about Mormonism and its literature as a landscape or network of landscapes, which seemed appropriate considering how Mormons from the very beginning have tried to establish a strong physical presence with planned cities and temples. I also found myself looking at the way other religious groups do much the same thing. I figured that while Mormons are a peculiar people, they’re not that peculiar in their desire to stake their claim on the land. (more) »
