Thank You
Bebbie

William and Laura, not really a big C.Dickens fan either (which frustrates my mother, who really loves his work).

I have not read ALLTTA, though I think will probably pick it up now and read through it for interests’ sake. I am woefully ignorant of Mormon Lit prior to about 1990 and need to get up to speed on a bunch of it.

I have, surprisingly, bitten off more than I could chew with a book by Thomas Merton. I have always admired his life and commitment to faith. And it is my goal to go on spiritual retreat to Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky (where Merton spent much of his spiritual and literary life).

And when I picked up the Seven Storey Mountain to read, I was really blown away by his facility for writing. But, about half way through the book where he describes his conversion story and that revelatory moment where religion takes hold of his life, I had to put the book down and stop reading. To this day, I cannot put my finger on quite what made me stop reading. I just had this unbelievably uncomfortable sensation, and literally put the book back on the shelf (mid-sentence).

Now, this is a book about about how a young man finds faith and embarked on a tremendous career as a writer. What is so difficult in that? I have no idea. But, it was one of the weirdest sensations I have ever had while reading.

A year or two later, I did pick the book up, struggled through the feeling and finished it. In the end, I enjoyed the writing very much, but something in the telling of the conversion story stopped me dead.

????????

——–
To answer Laura’s question:

Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko is more than I can chew. It’s not a novel that I can recommend. It’s content is quite graphic. It is also not a politically correct novel (Silko has been criticized for her treatment of homosexual characters). It is, however, a radical re-visioning of the world. An apocalyptic dream. A post-environmental catastrophe/anti-consumerist prophecy.

I’ll never read it again.

I grew up distrusting whitewashed pictures of people – especially historical figures. The more human Joseph became to me, the more I warmed up to him.

And what a fascinating person! He took on the world. He thundered into the American religious scene leaving a trail of wreckage in his wake and scared the entire Christian world half to death.

He was a visionary, a man far beyond his time, he had a radical and powerful vision of the destiny of human society and humanity itself. For all his visions and insight however, he never struck me as a very practical man. He often trusted people far too much, even after they had proven themselves unworthy of such trust. He had a powerful temper, and a strong sense of personal honor that did not bear insult very well. And I just don’t think he knew how to handle human relationships all that well. I think it showed very much in his marriages.

It was left to the formidably practical Brigham Young to take stock of what Joseph had unleashed and turn it into a system that everyone could at least live with.

But for all that, Joseph was magnificent. He was a true prophet in the Old Testament mold. I’m sure the world had not seen anything like him since Paul the Apostle stood in defiance before Caiaphas. I don’t think we’ve seen anything quite like it since either.

Fascinating and compelling reading. But it didn’t pull any punches, and made me a bit sick at points. I felt like I had learned a valuable lesson by the time I finished it. But it was a bit rough.

I’d grown up in a family where you were taught to respect books. But looking at the book, I found I didn’t really want to open it again. It would just feel like wallowing. So I chucked it in a trash bin and moved on.

I wonder if there is some way to sell/market more challenging LDS literature without going broke. Well, that’s the quintessential question isn’t it.

I’m glad that Kent and JKC are understanding about the one woman who got rid of the book. She is a really strong, smart woman and in that moment my respect grew for her quite a bit. I firmly believe she was acting according to the Spirit’s direction for her. It wasn’t the Spirit’s direction to me, but it was to her.

This is a little tangential, but I think sometimes edgy/challenging/whatever you want to call LDS fiction doesn’t sell because sometimes readers are just too weary. I haven’t read Sorenson’s book again because it was such an intense experience. There’s no guaranteeing if I were to pick it up again that I would have the same experience, but I’m not that anxious to find out. I’ve got too many other things on my plate!

We also have this tendency to judge one another’s testimonies based on the books we read, which is unfortunate. I even got this once from a non-LDS friend. She claimed my eternal salvation was at stake because I allowed my 11 year old son to read Harry Potter books — I am leading him down the slippery slope to witchcraft or something. My response was, “It’s fiction. It’s just a book.”

I guess I wish we could do the same with LDS fiction. “It’s fiction. It’s just a book.” And in this case, a very well written book whose message does not necessarily resonate with me, and even really bothers me. But Laura can say the same about Dickens. And we can agree to disagree.

Hugs to Laura — good post and good discussion here!

I wish I knew what to do about this kind of reaction and the fall-out that it causes. I don’t mind as much that people have this reaction as I do that the reaction leaves the rest of us without access to these books.

It is there (Where Nothing Is Long Ago: Memories of a Mormon Childhood).

I think the link to the Signature edition isn’t connected to the old edition for some reason. At the moment, Amazon says that they are “temporarily out-of-stock” of the book, so it may be better to get it from Signature (assuming that they didn’t let it go out-of-print or something — Signature is bad about that kind of thing).