Ironically, while listening to Campbell’s narration I didn’t think a lot about
the Book of Mormon as an oral narrative. I didn’t start thinking about that
until I had started my second reading of Deseret Book’s 1980 1st Edition facsimile.

I started my first reading around the time we got to the Words of Mormon,
pulling out the facsimile to follow along. I wanted to see what the differences
were, the 3,000+ differences I had heard about. I didn’t listen long before
pulling out pen and paper. The book is roughly 7×4 1/2″ and I cut some paper to take notes on, and started cataloging the differences I noticed. About the time I got to Helaman I took 4 sheets folded in half and made booklets. My notes became more thorough.

When I finished I decided to read from I Nephi to Words of Mormon to see what I had missed. And I kept reading after that, and started noticing a strong oral rhythm, and a great deal of oral literature, prayers, sermons, orations, blessings, instruction, conversation, trash talk (so to speak).

The oral literature suggests a culture used to preserving and passing records
along orally, which also suggests that many of the records were recorded orally before beng engraved.

So why didn’t I notice the oral rhythm when I heard Rex Campbell reading the book? Or other times I’ve read it? Part of what makes the rhythm noticeable is the length of the sentences, paragraphs and chapters. As he wrote the dictation, Oliver Cowdery designated some chapters, which RLDS/Community of Christ editions still use–LDS editions use much shorter chapters–but didn’t punctuate or paragraph the manuscript. The typesetter, John H. Gilbert, did that and his sentences and paragraphs are often long.

Gilbert’s sentences can be half a page or more and a few paragraphs go on for pages. Later editions keep most of Gilbert’s sentences and punctuation–though where he used semicolons we favor Emily Dickinson’s beloved em-dashes. We don’t notice the long sentences as much as we would in the first edition, though, because our editions break many sentences up into 2 or 3 or more verses.

The Book of Mormon’s oral rhythm is marked by lots of polysyndeton–using many ands to join phrases and clauses into long sentences–but we don’t notice the oral rhythm or long sentences because when Parley P. Pratt divided Gilbert’s long paragraphs into verses he didn’t do it by sentence. Some verses have more than one sentence, and many sentences span several verses. Because we print each verse as an indented paragraph starting with a capital letter we tend to think of the basic unit of scripture as the verse rather than the sentence or paragraph. Versifying The Book of Mormon affected the meaning of the book–or the way we read it–more than all of the 3,000 textual changes combined.

11. The Sickness

Elder Hargrave’s homesickness was palpable every day he spent in the MTC. There was something precious about him writing letters home or carefully opening his family’s many packages to him. Hargrave taped a tiny portrait of his girlfriend inside the front cover of his “white bible,” the book of mission rules most elders carry in the left breast pockets of their white dress shirts. He looked at that picture so often that some missionaries must have thought he was contemplating key rules like “[y]ou and your companion are to sleep in the same bedroom, but not in the same bed.”

Between dinner in the MTC cafeteria and the Sunday-night fireside, we usually had a half hour to stroll from the grounds to the Provo temple. It was our last Sunday there. Hargrave and I stood on the corner waiting for the light to change so that we could proceed east toward the futuristic gold spire projecting from the temple’s massive white slab base. Hargrave kept checking his watch. He seemed nervous. I was enjoying the longer sight lines. Gazing south down 9th East, I could see well over a mile. The buildings on the MTC campus were staggered in a way that prevented long views. It felt safe there among those orange brick buildings—safe and confining, even suffocating sometimes.

Soon after we reached the fountain in front of the temple, Hargrave demanded that we turn back. I followed, reluctant to cut our last walk short. Back at the corner of the MTC entrance and 9th East, Hargrave stopped and checked his watch again.

“I need to wait here,” he said. “It won’t be long.”

I did not catch on quickly. I leaned against the brick wall at the corner and pulled my irregular verb conjugation card (laminated, color-coded) from my pocket. I worked on the different forms of perder, to lose.

I looked up. Hargrave’s head was inside the rolled-down passenger window of a white suburban stopped at the light. He nodded and smiled. He accepted a package. He sweetly kissed the girl who handed it to him. I recognized her from the front fold of his white bible. The light turned green, he pulled back, and the suburban drove away. I generally tried to be obedient to the mission rules. Yet the sight of Hargrave flaunting them—elaborately, prodigiously—somehow filled me with immense joy.

He tried to act like nothing had happened. He was grinning, and his eyes were all teared up. Among other missionaries returning from the temple grounds, we went back inside. Hargrave turned to look at me again and again. I think he was worried about how I would respond.

“I thought she lived in Snowflake,” I said.

“She does.”

“Just in the neighborhood?”

“My whole family was in that truck.”

“How many hours is it from Snowflake?”

“Nine. Maybe ten. They’ve been on the road all day.”

Silence.

“They’re on their way back,” he said. “My dad’s got to work in the morning.”

* *

Thanksgiving in the MTC had not been entirely awful. There was plenty of food, and we watched church movies instead of going to the regular classes.

I did not exactly celebrate one year later. We taught two discussions that morning. A second discussion to a family that declined to be baptized. We are baptized already, they said. The usual talk comparing and contrasting Catholic and Mormon baptisms ensued. We left with a standing invitation to attend mass with them.

Then we taught a first discussion to their neighbor, Franklin. He was working on his bicycle when we approached. He said he would listen if we didn’t mind him adjusting some things. He got us plastic chairs, and we taught as he tinkered with his chain. It went well. He had grease on his hands, so we set the book on his window seal. He promised to have us inside when we came back. Franklin was eventually baptized.

Almoço that day was at Dona Silva’s. We appreciated every bite that people fed us. Dona Silva was poor, but that was not the issue. Poor people managed to give us tasty food all the time. Not Dona Silva. We were approaching her house.

“I hope she didn’t dry out the turkey,” Golightly said. “I prefer a moist bird.”

I knew it was November, and I knew it was Thursday. But other than my weekly planner (the folded piece of blue cardstock in my left breast pocket), I hadn’t looked at a calendar in months.

“I hope she made banana cream pie,” Golightly said. “Pumpkin is more traditional, of course. But I don’t think they have any pumpkins around here.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“I could even go for some cranberry sauce,” he said.

“I am going to kill you,” I said.

“Please,” Golightly said. “Try to have an attitude of gratitude.”

Dona Silva served what she called soup. My bowl consisted of lukewarm grey liquid, two lonely noodles, and a lump of gristle. The noodles instantly disintegrated on my tongue. I flipped the gristle out the window to Dona Silva’s emaciated dog when she wasn’t looking. I sipped a few drops of grey liquid from my spoon each time I raised it to my mouth. I was going for the appearance of hearty eating. We declined seconds. We gave silent thanks when she did not offer dessert.

The rest of the day was not exactly productive from a strict missionary-work standpoint. We were knocking doors. In between houses, we talked about Thanksgiving family traditions.

Golightly’s family spent the holiday at his grandparents’ farm. He explained the ingenious seating arrangement that somehow got forty-plus people seated in his grandparents’ modest home. He loved the noise and heat of so many people. The conversations shouted from table to table. The laughter. The repeated rising and sitting to permit constant movement between chairs and buffet table.

He gave me a short history of the annual family football game played on the front lawn. He told me how, several years ago, the game was won on a trick play that involved one of his uncles running around the back of the house and appearing—completely alone—between the apple trees that marked off the opposing end zone. His uncles argued bitterly about the legality of the play for a half hour. Now new trick plays have to be cooked every year. His last Thanksgiving at home, Golightly got one of his aunts to distract the opposing defense by announcing that they were all out of pie.

When the weather was good, Golightly’s grandpa hitched up one of his teams. He had Clydesdales. And six albino white Shetland ponies. Packed with grandchildren, the wagon slowly toured the rural Weber County streets surrounding the farm. Certain aunts usually came along, and they got the grandchildren singing Christmas carols as they went. Cold air and a pungent earthy smell (silage and chimney smoke and horse manure) burned in their noses.

I told Golightly about Thanksgiving at my grandma and grandpa’s house. It was a formal affair. Some families apparently have a separate kid’s table. My grandparents had a separate room for kids to eat in. The food was delicious and endless, but we had to stay in our seats. We had to wait for my grandma to replenish our plates one by one. After the feast, the grown-ups talked and played cards upstairs. The children were sent to the basement. We played ping pong and pool for hours. We watched football and movies.

We did covert operations (grandma would have killed us if she knew) in the sub basement storage room. We found old wooden skis and tennis rackets. And maybe twenty different fishing poles. Sword fights ensued. We dressed up in dusty old clothes. We found pictures of our parents as children. Even our grandparents as children. There were pictures of many others we did not know: vaguely familiar faces on brittle brown and cream paper.

One year we discovered a machine that had a strap you fastened behind your back. Its purpose was a mystery to us. You flipped a switch and—after a low groan—it shook you silly. We called it the “shaky-shaky.” It made my cousin Sam throw up a remarkable amount of green peas suspended in a matrix of liquid turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, yams, cranberries, and pumpkin pie.

Golightly and I were thoroughly miserable by the end of the day. We got to the point of half-renouncing our families, their full bellies, and glad hearts. How dare they rejoice without us?

I woke up the next day hung over from our homesickness binge. I didn’t want to do anything, and I was dreading the coming month of Christmas memories and longing. Eleven months was an impossibly long time. I worked out a compromise—I didn’t get up and get dressed. I did my morning study laying there in bed. As I read, the blender howled in the kitchen. Golightly was making his daily banana shake. Drinking it, he came into the bedroom.

“Morning Barker,” he said.

I grunted.

“Funny thing,” he said. “I just looked at my calendar.”

“That is funny,” I said.

“Right. Well—” he paused. “Thanksgiving is next week.”

“No it isn’t,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

I closed my bible and slammed it onto the broken chair I used as a bedside table. I got up and got ready for another day of work.

So instead I have decided to offer a glimpse of a work in progress. It was originally called “The Courtship of Elder Cannon.” Apparently I retitled it “Elder Cannon Remarries” at some point. It’s been almost a year since I last worked on it so I’m a bit rusty on where I was going with it, but I think it’s the next piece of creative writing I want to focus on. I originally envisioned it as a longish short story, but now I’m thinking of putting my money where my mouth is and try to write a novella.

I suppose this is rather self-indulgent on my part. And I know writers are supposed to be superstitious about not letting this stuff see the light of day until a full draft is complete (and even then only to a few readers). But I thought that I’d take a cue from the non-fiction author-bloggers and forward-thinking speculative fiction writers and go public with the project and provide a teaser of what’s been written so far.

So without further ado, here are the first 2,000 words of the first draft of “Elder Cannon Remarries.”

Elder Cannon Remarries (alternate title: The Courtship of Elder Cannon)

So this is what it has come to, he wrote in his journal, a glass of chocolate milk at his elbow, jazz playing loudly in the background. 14 months, one week, and four days after burying Rachel, a member of the Twelve has set me up on a blind date.

He stopped typing for a moment and relived the events of the day in his mind. He wasn’t sure how much to put down. This journal was strictly his. There was no need to edit. His posterity would read a different history, one that was true, but was weekly compiled from his daily ramblings, one that was edited, not heavily, but edited nonetheless. Still, if writing was his therapy, then forming the sentences, telling the story of the day in a way that made sense to him was how he did it. He didn’t believe in streaming down words, simply regurgitating the day. Everything had to be contextualized and encoded.

On the one hand, I find the proposition so completely ludicrous that it doesn’t even deserve mentioning. On the other hand, I agreed to go on the date. Yes, I did not want to say no to Elder M. I mean, how does one say no to an Apostle? But more to the point, well, my hope is that this date thing will take the heat off a bit. When he first mentioned…

He stopped again. Charles had brought up the idea over the lunch. The moment it registered, he experienced a small, slightly thrilling shock. Were they preparing him to become an Apostle? Why else would they need for him to remarry? He pushed those thoughts quickly out of his mind. That’s not how things are done. Charles would have no way of knowing who was in line. And only the Lord knew when. He wrote on a typewriter so instead of erasing the halted sentence, he simply pressed the tab key twice. He knew what the blank space meant. This journal entry would be one he would return to, no doubt, probably as early as late Thursday evening of next week:

It’s strange that I would feel the pressure. I have had the luxury of being afforded a certain latitude as a general authority. But hints have been dropped. The topic has come up, obliquely, often in the context of discussion about other widowers. Elder R. seems so happy doesn’t he? I’m sure he misses his Edith, but with the burden he carries, he sure is blessed to have found Judy. What does one say in response? That: I know that Rachel is waiting for me on the other side, but I miss her in this existence. I wanted more time with her in mortality. I have no doubts about the glory of the resurrection, but it was her imperfect body and unrefined spirit that I fell in love with. That is the Rachel I know, and the promise of the coming day, while comforting, is also foreign, just like she, though she will be the same, will be foreign, with a foreign body. No, of course I can’t say that. I don’t want to say that. I smile and nod, not because I’m afraid to make waves, heaven knows, I’ve tossed my share of rocks into the pool, but because I will carry my burden alone. It is only in being alone that I can keep her presence, her absence near. Close enough to feel.

The CD stopped playing. He finished his chocolate milk and went to bed.

****

The next day, Elder R. filled him in on the date: “Okay, so she is a RN who went back to school when she was in her 40’s and earned a doctoral degree in literature. She teaches at the Y. Her fiancé died in Vietnam. Ten years later her second fiancé didn’t show up for his interview with the Stake President.”

“Why are you telling me all this, Charles?” he asked. He knew the answer, but he asked the question anyway.

“I just thought that these are things you’d like to know because…”

“You don’t need to explain to me why she has never been married. Her history is of no concern to me.”

“Now, Bruce…”

“I get it. I know you need to establish her credentials, to show why she has never been married but still is eminently marriageable. But let’s let the lady maintain some privacy. Our culture has, I’m sure, questioned her her whole life. Her dignity lies in what she has done with her life, not in that her missed chances weren’t her fault.”

He knew that Charles meant well, but he also knew that the only way to dull the pain of the entire discussion was to keep the personal out of the equation. Righteous indignation was always a convenient fallback. He believed what he had said, but he also knew that he was using his belief as a defensive move and that kept the pain away, but it also left him vulnerable. He felt his shoulders tighten.

Elder R. unbuttoned and then buttoned his suit coat. He looked up straight into Bruce’s face and his eyes flared with honesty and humor. “Bruce, I know you miss Rachel. I know that this all seems very strange, especially since I’ve become the poster-boy for aged romance, and you know you don’t have to do this.”

Bruce kept his gaze steady. He wanted more. Elder R. matched his gaze for a moment then calmly said:

“You have to believe me when I say that the idea didn’t come first. Judy and I haven’t been sitting around plotting. She met Miriam a few months ago. They hit it off. And once I met her, it became quite clear that she is someone you should meet. That’s all. That’s all there is.”

Bruce creased his lips into a tight smile. He was touched, amused, angry and sad. The combination of emotions was unsettling, but it felt good to be a little riled up. He nodded his head slowly. “I trust your judgment. I will be there next Thursday. But don’t be disappointed if things don’t work out.”

“I’ll leave it up to you two to discover that promise you made to each other in the preexistence,” said Elder R.

Bruce laughed, and the tension drained from his body. He couldn’t wait to get home and put on some Dave Brubeck.

That night when he sat down at the typewriter, he wasn’t in the mood to write so he picked up his journal and began reading from the entry of the day before, moving backwards through the binder with a slow, steady rhythm. His eyes glazed each page with the soothing ease of familiarity. He read not to relive but to experience time as un-immediate. Time removed from the onward march of things done and yet to do. This was his history and unlike his memory, the book written in heaven, it will not stand in judgment against him for once the words become frozen in type they cease to be part of his corruptible, mortal being.

]]> http://www.motleyvision.org/2008/work-in-progress-elder-cannon-remarries/feed/ 16 http://www.motleyvision.org/2006/excerpt-and-now-for-something-completely-different/ http://www.motleyvision.org/2006/excerpt-and-now-for-something-completely-different/#comments Sun, 19 Mar 2006 16:29:00 +0000 Patricia Karamesines http://www.motleyvision.org/?p=198 . . . and hopefully a little fun. It’s been a rough week at Casa Karamesines, with illness ruling the household and PGK’s disabled daughter requiring much care day and night, and when PGK has a hard week she likes to put up something on AMV she enjoys doing, something that lightens her mind.

This is an excerpt from my much longer and (yet) unpublished essay, “Plato’s Alcove,” which won first place in the Utah Arts Council’s essay competition a few years ago. I enjoy writing these kinds of stories; they’re fun to play with. Adapted from the folk story form as they are, their language becomes approachable from nearly any direction. The essay from which I excerpted this story is about irony and beauty and how both may combine suddenly and unexpectedly in a dazzling flash to shift one’s world view. Warning: this is not a story about the origins of the world as per evolution or the OT creation story; this is a story about language, relation, and, as mentioned, irony, a much maligned and misunderstood trope. (Oh yes, and some readers with sensitive or out-of-joint noses may detect a faint whiff of environmental idolatry.)

In the desert one day I met Coyote, the Trickster-God. We greeted each other and sat in the shade. I opened my canteen and drank then offered Coyote a drink. When he thought I wasn’t looking he wiped the canteen’s mouth. Then he drank.