Rejected Books: The American Pimpernel

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The American Pimpernel
The Story of Varian Fry
The man who saved the artist's on Hitler's death list

I've been "reading" this book for about eight years now, maybe more maybe less, but I haven't read a word for probably six of those years. It's been sitting on my nightstand all those years, but I haven't even cracked it. I'm on page 128 of 352 and will be forever. I'm officially leaving this book closed. I'll be selling it to a used-book store in about 45 minutes.

The idea behind the book is thrilling. American guy sneaks into Hitler's Europe and through his intellectual swashbucklery rescues artists and academics targeted by the Nazi regime. Exciting!, right?

Yeah, I guess. I don't really remember if it was exciting or not.

The only sticking impression is of the author Andy Marino's attitude toward this adventure. Marino is chilling and he presents the "hero" Fry in his own image. Which is to say, in the laws of life presented by this book, as true as gravity-pulls-down or Nazism-is-bad, you as reader as expected to accept the fact that an artist's life is worth more than tens of thousands of other people's lives.

This is what I found so chilling, so unsettling, so wrong.

I can find noble reasons to save André Breton and Max Ernst, but to suggest they deserve to be saved because their lives are inherently more valuable than a peasant woman's are where I will have to disagree. As an artists who associates with artists, I will readily admit that we have high opinions of ourselves, but the second we start thinking our actual lives matter more than other lives is the second our megalomania becomes dangerous.

Art is for everyone who lives and all those lives are equally valuable and it is not for the artist or the connosier to decide who is worthy to live and who might as well die. Yet that's what this book suggests. Varian Fry was rich and appreciated good art and writing and so he could decide who should live and who should die. Perhaps he was a more complicated character than that, but to Marino, that's enough. He is incapable of questioning his premise that artists' lives are worth more and that's what makes it impossible for me to finish this book.

Ambitiously Prediction 2012 (already!) I'll provide two, you provide the rest.

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Republican Presidential Ticket: Mitt Romney and Herman Cain

Best Animated Feature Oscar Winner: The Adventures of Tintin - Secret of the Unicorn

What Google Translate said a bit of Lorem Ipsum in a recent job means:

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Pretty blush of modesty to the orator vocificat preparations for war;
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quickly circumgrediet of confidence, no matter how the memoranda of
freely leavened the chairs of the best trembling with age.
Saburre cast a vote for the Waters of Sulis, though a glutton: yet the dogs
clearly, leavened ossifrage, his preparations for war is always clearly
GROW IN ADDITION TO kindly as his, no matter how economy, cuts it off: yet the dogs preparations for war. ROOM FOR THE REST profit is it hard to spinous
to get a booth. Octavius, a courteous incredibly BRISTLY saburre was growing feebler. Chairs praemuniet
ROOM FOR THE REST, always trembling with his preparations for war to mix the spinous POLITE of matrimony, and to jest enough to ossifrage Caribbean.

The night with no internet

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We spent last night with the Brass Clan who have no wifi and whose neighbors wifi is now password protected. (Remember when the wifi default was nonsecured and you could pull over in any residential neighborhood and check your email or hack the FBI? Ah, the good old days.) So I had no internet last night. Which meant I couldn't work on my prioritized projects. I was stuck with the projects on my laptop. So I read a great screenplay I'd had sitting around for about six months and rewrote a novella that had been waiting in purgatory for over two years. I'm pretty stoked. Sure, the "urgent" things didn't get done, but how awesome to get done what I did. I'm feeling good.

The Sartorial Big O

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Since we got him real tieable ties, the Big O has worn a tie to school every single day (Feb 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15). Today he's switching back to his A's jersey, but he tells me he'll be wearing ties every Monday-Tuesday-Thursday from now on.

(14-17)

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Now I'm remembering why I originally went with FIVE books at a time. All these broken-up book posts are overwhelming Thutopia. Last year I finished so few I forgot how overwhelming book writeups can get. This year I'm already on track to over double last year's numbers! Hhhhh.




017) Best American Comics 2010 edited by Neil Gaiman, finished February 12


Another great year for comics. Neil Gaiman did a great job --- only one entry in this volume that I didn't like. Although I was upset that the excerpt from Genesis was the one I had already read.....

over one month, under two


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016) Little Bee by Chris Cleave, finished February 10


I don't know how I feel about this book. At times I was audibly groaning and rolling my eyes and muttering under my breath at the annoying games it was playing. Then it would gain my respect by not screwing me as badly as I expected. It over-relied on the character's dialectical quicks and only about 80% of the gimmicks it employed worked. It plays some Upton Sinclair games, but it's never so obvious that you end up feeling preached to.

Simply, this is a good book in most respects, with plenty more very good elements than irritating elements. A book I would expect most readers to love and towards which specific complaints are difficult to articulate. A book that lets me say both this is a writer to watch and a writer I wouldn't go out of my way to read again. (Though if you disagree, there's his first book and his columns.)

Here's the story: a Nigerian refugee and a British woman, due to a shared horror, come together and bounce around for a couple hundred pages.

It was the book chosen for the high school's parent/student/teacher book club which is how I came to read it. Maybe I'll say more after tonight. Maybe not. I now understand why the cover said nothing.

(Note: Club meeting was canceled.)

i think eight days


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015) Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, finished February 2


I've been saying I'm done with Steinbeck. That someday I would read Travels with Charley and, since Lady Steed loves it so much, perhaps East of Eden, but unless I loved them, I was done. I was sick of his cheap violent endings and unless those two books --- which I figured had good odds of not matching what I had read before --- broke the trend, I was writing Steinbeck off forever.

Well I'm pleased to announce that Travels with Charley has been a terrific read.

Travels is the nonfiction yarn of an aging Steinbeck taking his dog and a truck with a camper on the back and hitting the roads c. 1960. He wants to reintroduce himself to America, to gain a fresh sense of this land he writes about. He starts by heading north into Maine, then back down and over over over till he arrives in the Pacific Northwest. Down to his hometown, then down through the Mojave, Texasward, to New Orleans than back north and home. Along the way, he draws a fascinating and tactile vision of America fifty years ago.

The most powerful section is at the end. He heads to the South because, at this moment in time, this is where History is happening. And the emotional impact contained in the few pages he spends on the South's turmoil is devastating and hopeful all at the same time. Marvelous stuff. I'ld like to share it with my classes.

Another even briefer scene that I hope has been anthologized in books of animal tales, is the run-in with a bear in Yellowstone. Classic stuff.

But all in all, it's just this look at a lost America that I love the most. I see things I recognize from my Idaho childhood, but things now lost forever --- bits of the American experience and the American character my kids will never know.

I'm grateful Steinbeck captured it for us.

(I began underlining passages to share early in my reading [page 38], but in the end, there are just too many to type up. I'm afraid you'll just have to read it yourself.)

perhaps six months



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014) Cursed Pirate Girl: The Collected Edition Vol. I by Jeremy Bastian, finished January 31


I helped out early on this book's Kickstarter, fully expecting that it, like all other Kickstarter projects I've backed, would fail to meet its goal. Boy was I wrong. In the end, $36,017 were pledged towards its $2,500 goal. So my $27.27 disappeared and just before the new year, I got a beautiful book in the mail.

And I do mean beautiful. Given Bastian's intricate style, a single page requires hours of attention to puzzle out its details. Chris Ware says it takes a thousand times longer to make comics compared to reading them. With Bastian it could very well be ten thousand times.

But given my attention to line, I am not, at the end of my first reading, really very sure if the story is any good. Claims are noised about that this is the new Alice in Wonderland (a claim that gets thrown out every few years --- remember when they were saying it about Coraline?) and I get the comparison (more than I did for Coraline, actually), but besides being able to admit this is a fantastic absurd adventure, I can't comment on its overall quality. But I'm pretty sure it was good.

The art, at least, is worth the price of entry..

I was thinking about super-hi-rez-scanning a page in then giving you zoomins deeper and deeper, but it ends up I'm too lazy. So instead here's a picture from Cursed Pirate Girl I found online (click for source, a review of part of what I read pre-collected version):

almost exactly a month




Previously in 2011 . . . . :

13-9
013) Sweet Tooth: In Captivity by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30
012) Sweet Tooth: Out of the Woods by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30
011) Essex County: The Country Nurse by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30
010) Essex County: Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire, finished January 29
009) Essex County: Tales from the Farm by Jeff Lemire, finished January 29

8
008) Magdalene by Morah Jovan, finished January 27

7-6
007) Knightfall Part Two: Who Rules the Night by a slew of DC folk, finished January 23
006) Bayou by Jeremy Love, finished January 17

5-1
005) Mr. Monster by Dan Wells, finished January 10
004) The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, finished January 6
003) The Mystery of the Dinosaur Graveyard by Mary Adrian, finished January 5
002) Batman - Judge Dredd: Judgment on Gotham by John Wagner and Alan Grant and Simon Bisley, with lettering by the famous Todd Klein; finished January 4
001) Batman: Venom by Dennis O'Neil et al, finished January 2

Massacre Time

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It's Valentine's Day, and you know what that means! Time for a massacre! It's 2011 so I think we should use something cool like lasers or something to do the killing, but I'm not really picky. We just need to find some unarmed annoying people and we'll be set. How's 5 sound to you. Great? Great! See you then!

A short blast to the future

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Hey! Hey, future! What the heck, future? Is this your idea of a joke? Well no one thinks it's funny, future. Nobody. Not a soul. Not anybody, not even your mother. So what's next, future? More of the same old crap or are you gonna try and step it up for once? Maybe do something worth our time and all the bother we're sinking into you?

Seriously, future. Get with it.

Headed to my hometown this weekend

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I wandered lonely as a sasquatch
Staggering through rainy vales and hills,
Simply in quest for a game of hopscotch
Simply in search of innocent thrills
Simply in search of the simple pastimes
Pastimes left lost in life's younger climes.

Reading from the garage

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I've had a source for free books and for a while there I was picking up chapter books I thought might interest the kids when they get older. I stopped though when I realized I was a) getting too many and b) we might move before they're able to read them.

But the Big O has had some serious breakthroughs in reading the last few weeks and now he's found this shelf and he's been taking books off it and piling them up. He's still too slow to speed through them, but he loves that they're there and that he found them and I think that's awesome.

Interview with Dan Wells

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2011 Few-Books-at-a-Time episode titled "Is Jeff Lemire a Genius?" in which we look at some of his books --- five actually, just like we used to do in the old days.

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013) Sweet Tooth: In Captivity by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30

012) Sweet Tooth: Out of the Woods by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30

011) Essex County: The Country Nurse by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30

010) Essex County: Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire, finished January 29

009) Essex County: Tales from the Farm by Jeff Lemire, finished January 29

two days or about twenty-four hours

First, let me the 45thousandth person to proclaim Essex County a masterwork. I just sat down and reread volume one then followed it immediately with volumes two and three. And I don't know if it's possible for me to overstate how excellent this work is. It's on par with the very best comics I know --- Jimmy Corrigan, Maus, Blankets --- it's high literature as Lemire's fellow Canadians have recognized.

What I don't know is whether or not Lemire is a bonafide genius. It's just too soon to say. Chris "Jimmy Corrigan" Ware is. Craig "Blankets" Thompson? Let's wait for the next book before we decide.

(Incidentally, speaking of Thompson, as his drawings in Blankets are what I wish I could draw, the style I wish I had, Essex's drawings are what I would actually draw. If, you know, I had a decent sense of perspective and the human figure.)

But whether he is a genius who can consistently hit the heights represented by Essex County or not doesn't affect at all the inherent worth of Essex County itself.

I admit I have a couple biases that help my opinion of him, viz:

1. Half my childhood was spent in the Idaho version or southern Ontario and I feel the honesty in his portrayal. It's clear he respects his past.

2. The drawing thing. But seriously. That ink....

See that crow? I have a thing for crows (add bias #3), but in the end, that crow is not just a crow. It is a symbol that helps tie all three books together into a single novel. I don't know whether Lemire planned it that way or not, but I've seen enough crappy pulltogether symboljobs to recognize the difference between a hack bit of lookatme and a genuine, brilliant metaphor.

For those waiting for some plot summary, Essex County is three stories about a pair of Essex County families. That good enough for you?

After my last post I want to mention briefly that all three stories contain or grow out of a single, pivotal, life-shaping sexual encounter. Nothing base or sexy here, just a simple fact: the power to create life does just that --- and not only directly, through conception.

I could wax rhapsodic about all three volumes, but I have another couple Lemire books to get to, and so just one more thing, about the first volume, Tales from the Farm. As I said in my introductory essay here, serious comics are in a transitional state --- they often require a bit of meta --- and Farm is no exception. The main character, a boy named Lester, wears a cape and mask, draws his own superhero comics. This is all done to terrific effect, but once again, it's a serious artist acknowledging comics' hackneyed past. (Not that I have anything against superheros, but they're just one small corner of all possible stories.)

I don't suppose it's possible to arrive at adulthood making comics without a relationship with superheros though. Love them, hate them, love/hate them, you know them.

And so, although I was surprised to learn that Lemire is writing Superboy and Atom, I wasn't shocked.

I found out by looking for more information on Sweet Tooth, the comic he's writing and drawing for Vertigo, DC's grownup house.

It's one of a zillion postapocalyptic stories out now, but a good one. I've read the first two collections and I'm hoping to read more. It's too soon to know whether or not it is evidence of Lemire's possible genius, but not to soon to know that it's good. It gets compared to Y: The Last Man and The Walking Dead and those comparisons seem apt. In this case we have a disease that's killed nearly everyone, weird mutated children, evidence of genetic science being the cause, a big man with guns who kills people, desperation, prostitutes, children in peril --- all that stuff. But its well written and drawn in a gussied up version of his Essex tales and certainly has the potential to be something special. I hope so. I'm expecting great things from this Lemire guy. Time to pick up some more books.






Previously in 2011 . . . . :

8
008) Magdalene by Morah Jovan, finished January 27

7-6
007) Knightfall Part Two: Who Rules the Night by a slew of DC folk, finished January 23
006) Bayou by Jeremy Love, finished January 17

5-1
005) Mr. Monster by Dan Wells, finished January 10
004) The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, finished January 6
003) The Mystery of the Dinosaur Graveyard by Mary Adrian, finished January 5
002) Batman - Judge Dredd: Judgment on Gotham by John Wagner and Alan Grant and Simon Bisley, with lettering by the famous Todd Klein; finished January 4
001) Batman: Venom by Dennis O'Neil et al, finished January 2

Book 8 of 2011 Magdalene by Moriah Jovan (reviewed in connection with the LDS Eros project)

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The LDS Eros series has been neglected for a while, but a new book by Moriah Jovan is all that's needed to jump right back in. In case you missed my lengthy comments on her first book or short blurb on her second, her books tend to involve that sex stuff. But more on that after some official-because-they-are-in-italics notices.

(NOTE: Although this book qualifies for protection under my MS POLICY, I will not be treating it in that way for a number of reasons. Most notably, the book is nearly finished, is being released in under three months and, for a third reason, see the following disclaimer.)

(DISCLAIMER: I am Moriah's editor. We have a business relationship. I have mercenary reasons for wanting this book to do well. Keep that in mind.)

008) Magdalene by Morah Jovan, finished January 27

one month

Well. Where to start?

Let me start with some accolades.

Starting with Moriah's first book, I knew she was a writer to watch. With this book, I think she has arrived. She is now a significant voice.

But a statement like that can only have meaning within a certain context, and so let me clarify my meaning thereof.

Moriah is a romance writer, but I am not ensconced in the romance scene so I can't really comment on her significance within the world of romance. Moriah is a noted expert in ebooks, but "ebooks" is not really a literary scene so much as a technological and marketing scene so the question of vocal significance doesn't seem relevant. Moriah is also a Mormon writer and it here is where my personal knowledge can start to have relevance. Because, in my opinion, Magdalene is, now, three months before its release, already the Mormon book to beat in 2011. Now, I don't know if its sex will be hard for the Whitney Academy, but I really truly hope they do for reasons that are coming right up. I do think AML will give it a fair shake if they get it thrust into their faces by enough eager members, but we'll see. I hope so.

The provocative ad copy for this book is A MORMON BISHOP!!!!! AN EX-PROSTITUTE!!!!! A MAN WITH A VENDETTA!!!!! LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!!!!!!!! ( !!!!!s not present in original but added by me for extra duper excitement) and that's as good a place to start as any. Because, and this is important, although this book does share characters with her other two books it is not a sequel and you do not need to read them first.

The MORMON BISHOP!!!!! is that most interesting creature that seems to exist more frequently in fiction than in real life, the widower bishop. He's also one of the richest men in America (he's in steel, if you're wondering).

The EX-PROSTITUTE!!!!! (very high end [not a crack whore], if that makes a difference to you) has since gotten her MBA and become a one-woman restructuring machine, moving into floundering companies and gutting them and saving the money from dissipating.

Our two protagonists meet through business and recognize something in each other they've never found before. But, that said and as you might imagine, they have rather different viewpoints on a number of important issues (eg, SEX!!!!!).

Now, it's no spoiler to say that this book has hawt and hevvy sex in it. What may be a spoiler though is that, in my opinion, this sex should not disturb a faithful Mormon audience. Clever people will be able to figure out why.

(If you're new to my LDS Eros posts, let me refer you to Part I which I will be referencing the next few paragraphs. Note though that the definitions I'm using today have different meanings in different posts. Today's definition of "pornography" for instance assumes it's a bad thing. But elsewhere I posit the possibility of a moral pornography. Keep that in mind if you start cross-referencing.)

D.H. Lawrence says that pornography is "the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it." Or (to obnoxiously quote myself), porn is "artless and ugly and serves just one purpose: to give your brain an unnatural (and unholy) injection of the sex drug."

This is bad.

Erotica on the other hand we'll describe in this way: while it "may titillate and arouse . . . that is not its sole purpose --- it also desires to be beautiful."

Which is in keeping with a Mormon viewpoint of sexuality, I think. Sex is one of life's beauties and may be celebrated as such.

So the question that will matter to Mormon readers is whether this sex is P or E.

First let's note again that this book has sex, actual sex, not just the-door-closed-and-suddenly-it-was-morning sex, but sex sex.

Second let's add the shocking should-be-a-spoiler-but-everyone-familiar-with-the-book-already-knows-it fact that this book's plot is modeled after the Gospels.

And now let's drop onto this pile of observations that for all the sex and religious allegory and big business deals and the sociopathic badguy and the other bells and whistles that make Magdalene a blast to read --- notwithstanding all of that --- ultimately this is the story of two people who fall in love. It's a character story. And how these characters change is The Whole Story. Really. When you come down to it, everything else is merely trappings to help the author tell her story of two characters and how they change to become one with another.

Forgive me if I state the obvious and say that sex should be part of this story.

Because here's the thing --- no matter how explicit the sex may be, no matter how much of it there may be, this novel does not contain one single sex scene that fails to develop the characters in serious and important ways. Every sex scene --- each and every one of them! --- provides us, as readers, access to the sex-doers' souls. We understand them in a way that can only be accomplished through their physical joining. We learn things about them we would never understand if the camera had cut away.

This sex is about people, not sex. And so no matter how explicit it may be, it is never gratuitous. Which is remarkable, really, that this much sex never drops into justfortheheckofit. Amazing for such explicity to be utterly unexploitative.

!!!!!

Besides the fact that the book is well written, besides the fact that it provides a compelling and accurate look at Mormonism for people unfamiliar with Mormonism, besides the fact that it goes places few Mormon books have gone before --- besides all these things, Magdalene is a significant Mormon book because it deals with subjects we consider sacred (sex is just for starters), places them in a broader world context, and forces readers both outside and inside the faith to consider their significance through an original lens.

This is not a trivial accomplishment. Mormons are always complaining that books appealing to "nonmembers" always present the Church badly or lightly or inaccurately. I for one have always rejected that view and here is a book that proves the point.

Whatever you do, don't let the sex keep you from this landmark (also, don't let the Mormons keep you from this landmark). And, sorry, if you just skip the sex (or the religion) you will not understand the characters. It's just not possible.

For the average national reader, this is a book that will demonstrate that Mormons should be taken seriously. For the average Mormon reader, this is a book that will demonstrate sexuality should be taken seriously.

Magdalene demands our attention and discussion. So don't let my puffery go unanswered. Read it for yourself and let's parse the difference between good and evil.

We'll never know until we eat the fruit.


(The book's not available until April 24, but if you would like a reminder, let me know in the comments. In the meantime, admitting that you don't have much to go on other than what I say, what do you think?)



Previously in 2011 . . . . :

7-6
007) Knightfall Part Two: Who Rules the Night by a slew of DC folk, finished January 23
006) Bayou by Jeremy Love, finished January 17

5-1
005) Mr. Monster by Dan Wells, finished January 10
004) The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, finished January 6
003) The Mystery of the Dinosaur Graveyard by Mary Adrian, finished January 5
002) Batman - Judge Dredd: Judgment on Gotham by John Wagner and Alan Grant and Simon Bisley, with lettering by the famous Todd Klein; finished January 4
001) Batman: Venom by Dennis O'Neil et al, finished January 2

EDIT: ADDED THIS IMAGE FOR LINKAGE REASONS:

Introducing NEW Books-read Policy & A few Books at a Time in 2011 (6-7)

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EXPLANATION OF NEW POLICY:

I've been aware for a while that the five-books-at-a-time policy has its flaws, but this really came to a head in the first five-books post of 2011.

That post was really four posts. One on a couple Batman books I read. One post on a significant book from my childhood. One post on my literary relationship with Stephen Crane. One post on a host new YA book. And combining those posts into a single too-long monstrosity meant that this blog's constant desire --- to engender conversation --- was diluted and lost.

Ergo.

From now on, I will be posting books not in sets of five, but at natural breaks.

The essential rules remain unchanged.

Today, a couple of comic books:

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=



007) Knightfall Part Two: Who Rules the Night by a slew of DC folk, finished January 23


Uneven. At times rather thrilling, other times fully dull. Nice use of the Scarecrow though. Didn't really live up to its promise. So while I guess it was ultimately good, I was also ultimately disappointed. Maybe I should have found volume one? Maybe I should now read volume three? I dunno. I'm not thrilled enough to follow up.

a week or two



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006) Bayou by Jeremy Love, finished January 17


Read my review here.

several days



Previously in 2011 . . . . :

1-5
005) Mr. Monster by Dan Wells, finished January 10
004) The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, finished January 6
003) The Mystery of the Dinosaur Graveyard by Mary Adrian, finished January 5
002) Batman - Judge Dredd: Judgment on Gotham by John Wagner and Alan Grant and Simon Bisley, with lettering by the famous Todd Klein; finished January 4
001) Batman: Venom by Dennis O'Neil et al, finished January 2

Sincere Poetry Theater: "Conversation"

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You were here, I admitted,
when I was born.

Thank you, said the Earth.
That's all I wanted.

Predicting Tomorrow

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We no longer do my Oscar game but, by the same rules (no repeated movies, etc), here are my prediction for tomorrow:

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Best motion picture of the year
--------The Town

Best animated feature film of the year
--------How to Train Your Dragon

Achievement in directing
--------True Grit

Performance by an actor in a leading role
--------Colin Firth in King's Speech

Performance by an actress in a leading role
--------Natlie Portman in Black Swan

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
--------Christian Bale in The Fighter

Performance by an actress in a supporting role*
--------Jacki Weaver Animal Kingdom

Adapted screenplay
--------Rabbit Hole

Original screenplay
--------The Kids Are All Right

Best documentary feature
--------Exit Through the Gift Shop

Best foreign language film of the year
--------Biutiful

Best animated short film
--------Let's Pollute

Best live action short film
--------The Confession

Best documentary short subject
--------Killing in the Name

Achievement in film editing
--------Red

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
--------The Social Network

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)*
--------"I See the Light" in Tangled

Achievement in art direction
--------Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Achievement in cinematography
--------Winter's Bone

Achievement in costume design
--------Tron: Legacy

Achievement in makeup
--------Alice in Wonderland

Achievement in sound editing
--------Toy Story 3

Achievement in sound mixing
--------Inception

Achievement in visual effects
--------Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Buddha is to Jesus as . . . . (a svithe)

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Buddhism grew out of Hinduism is a manner somewhat like Christianity's growth out of Judaism. Then there are those who say Jesus spent his lost years in India studying Buddhism (a guy in our ward, however, treats it as settled fact that Jesus was in England mining tin with Joseph of Arimethea) (or I guess that's when they went mining together --- maybe I should have clarified).

Anyway, none of this is substantive. Mostly what will matter in my eventual point is that Christianity and Buddhism are both good-for-you religions (we can add Hinduism and Judaism to this list as well) and the picture starting this post is pretty cool.

Truth claims matter in religion --- of course they do --- but in a world filled with violent hatred for pretty much every religion (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism --- and on and on), pretty much every religion has to ask themselves how vigorously to argue not about who is right, but whether or not others perceive others' rightness. If you follow me.

The funny ("funny") thing is, excepting, say, Moses or Mohammad on a bad day, most religious founders seem like they might have gotten along just fine. In Saint Young Men, Jesus and Buddha are even friends. of course, they also attend a Japanese high school, so, you know.

My point, if I have one, and I'm really starting to wonder, is not quite a smells-like-weed Peace Is Possible nor a whiny Rodney King Can't We All Just Get Along, but more of an invitation to step back. No matter how rational I think I am or You think You are, no matter how much the problem is clearly Them Over There, I think we always have the capacity to take one step further back. And once we're far enough back, it gets harder to tell me from you from them and our cities are both purple on the horizon and it's all just one pale blue dot and it's hard to imagine that even Moses or Mohammad meant some of those scarier comments and, well, yeah, peace is possible. We can all just get along.

And this comes from a guy belonging to a religion with really strong truth claims.

We're all pretty much the same.

I hope each year we can recognize a bit more that our fates are all tied together and if Jesus and Buddha can be high-school friends, then the rest of us can support each other too.

(So . . . did that all come together?)







previous svithe

Minireview of the fiction in Sunstone 161

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Note: I've decided to attempt brief reviews of more LDS short fiction besides just what appears in Irreantum. This means I am going to make a greater effort to use the mormon arts tag, making it easier for anyone to peruse these posts.

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"Angina" by Heather Walker Jones

Synopsis

A woman tries to reconnect with her ex-husband, now a widower, after hearing he has been released as bishop.

Review

The climax is thrilling and moves breakneck as our heroine makes her attempt. However, I found the pages before and after to be clunky and difficult to believe. Plus, little illogical phrases here and there make it hard for me accept the story. I'm not good at overlooking little errors.

(It wasn't helped, though, that it shares many similarities with a novel I'm reading now because the novel is just much better.)

I find the story as an object though to be a very curious thing indeed. The way it plays with numerous Mormon tropes has potential. I think with a major redrafting and lots of nitpicking it could really be something. Ah well.

The fiction of Irreantum 12.2 (Winter 2010)

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In his article this issue titled "Propaganda, Art and the Desire to Testify", John Allen writes that "Propaganda [in the form of fiction] does not trust that the world, messy and broken as it is, an testify of God and His grace. So it edits the world. It assumes that the world must be seen through rose-colored glasses before it can testify of God. In this, propaganda suggests that God is weak --- so weak, in fact, that He, the creator of all, must be buttressed up with the aid of bad writing, that His teachings must be propagandized to be powerful."

I, you may know, feel similarly. And no question this issue of Irreantum is certainly willing to show the world a bit broken and messy --- as well as holy.

A similar essay by Doug Thayer makes some of the same points, then is followed immediately by

Doug Thayer "Locker Room"

The problem with "Locker Room" is that it does follow so immediately on the heels of his essay "About Serious Mormon Fiction" in which he lays out his philosophy of fiction and suggested a probable path for the future. Although I can't agree entirely with his premises or conclusions, I found the essay to be a thoughtful and compelling contribution to the discussion.

Then, as I said, comes "Locker Room" which reads like a proof of concept. If the essay says serious Mormon fiction should deal with X, Y and Z, then the story's protagonist, we learn, is going through a period of life in which he is discovering X, Y and --- wait for it --- Z.

Not that it's a bad story. It's a Doug Thayer story and all Doug Thayer stories are about the same (in my experience) in topic (boys coming of age) and quality (good). Uniform. If you like Doug Thayer stories, well, here's another one. Just don't read the essay first or it will seem even more formulaic than usual. I mean --- he even borrows exact phrases. I wish I knew which had been written first.

Ryan Shoemaker "Bing"

Like the Douglas Thayer story that follows it, this is a story of a teenaged Mormon boy (or, in this case, boys) who grow up through a moment of unexpected violence.

This one's set in a time period roughly equivalent to my own teenage years which may be one shallow reason I liked it better. Its two Mormon boys and their flamboyant friend with his wild tales and big talk led me on the same trip he took his friends on. In retrospect, a lot of aspects of this story have been done before, but they're done so well here that I didn't even realize I've been here before. Well written story. Shoemaker's one to keep an eye on.

Stephen Tuttle "Maybe the Kids Maybe"

I've liked the Tuttle stories I've read thus far (1 and 2) and this one's good too, but.

Like Doug Thayer, I now see that Tuttle might repeat himself a bit. Now, yes, I have only read three of his stories, two of which I thought were excellent and this third quite good, but now I'm seeing that in all three stories he has relied on some similar gimmicks. So if this is your first Tuttle story, you'll probably be blown away. If not then you might, like me, wonder what else he can do.

Eric W Jepson "17 Facts About Angels"

Obviously a work of utter genius.

On a lighter note, this is the fourth story in a row to include at least one teenaged boy as an important character. I can't imagine what the significance of this is, but it seems worth mentioning.

I read the story backwards this time (having skipped it then being unable not to read it because I have issues) and I'm still pretty satisfied with it.

Heather Halcrow "Abominations"

This story had a moment of utter sit-up-in-shock horror, but it ends up it's just your pretty typical literary story featuring the interior life of a character and starring the external metaphor of that inner life. Well written, and the only reason I can't appreciate it more is because I was so excited to be reading something deliriously different that when it ended up being the same sort of thing I read in other literary journals all the time, I couldn't help but be disappointed.

I'm coming off rather negative here, and that's just not right. The quality of the fiction in this issue was terrific and if I have any complaint, its solution will come from more Mormon writers competing in the literary scene. So get out there.

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Note: The essays were of course good, both critical and creative, and so was the poetry. I was particularly blown away by Melissa Bradford's work. Just incredible. "House for Rent" was my favorite followed closely by "Bottled Fruit." Like three of the stories' focus on men and their issues, these poems (and Elizabeth Garcia's) focus on women's. The pregnancy conceit Bradford works with is brilliantly done. I also enjoyed the interview and the reviews (even if mine contains The Single Worst Typo of All Time and I feel utter guilt thereupon) and Irreantum essentially is still its excellent self. You should totally subscribe.

Classic Svithes:Svithe: Success & Jealousy

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This svithe originally published March 5, 2006.

You should also check out Jen's amazing svithe from today.

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Being somewhat talented in words can, I am afraid, make me a bit of a snob. I am ashamed of this. I am ashamed to admit that I probably would not have listened as I should have to Moses (who said, "I am not eloquent ... I am slow of speech) or Enoch (who described himself also as "slow of speech"). I admit that I am impressed by--not sophistry--but good wordsmithery. And so it is no surprise that one of my favorite speakers among current General Authorities is Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. In particular, I return to "The Other Prodigal" again and again, attempting to turn myself into a good person.

He begins by retelling the parable:

Among the most memorable parables the Savior ever told is the story of a foolish younger brother who went to his father, asked for his portion of the estate, and left home to squander his inheritance ... in "riotous living." His money and his friends disappeared sooner than he thought possible--they always do--and a day of terrible reckoning came thereafter--it always does. In the downward course of all this he became a keeper of pigs, one so hungry, so stripped of sustenance and dignity that he "would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat." But even that consolation was not available to him.

Then the scripture says encouragingly, "He came to himself." He determined to find his way home, hoping to be accepted at least as a servant in his father's household. The tender image of this boy's anxious, faithful father running to meet him and showering him with kisses is one of the most moving and compassionate scenes in all of holy writ. It tells every child of God, wayward or otherwise, how much God wants us back in the protection of His arms.

But today we're not talking about that son.

...being caught up in this younger sonÂ’s story, we can miss, if we are not careful, the account of an elder son, for the opening line of the Savior's account reads, "A certain man had two sons"--and He might have added, "both of whom were lost and both of whom needed to come home."

I am that second son.

I was out in the fields working today, dutifully, as I have always done. And when I arrived home, caked in sweat and dust, I saw a party in full force, celebrating my brother who ran away and squandered his share of the family's wealth and who is now being treated like a war hero.

I am bitter.

Feeling unappreciated and perhaps more than a little self-pity, this dutiful son--and he is wonderfully dutiful--forgets for a moment that he has never had to know filth or despair, fear or self-loathing. He forgets for a moment that every calf on the ranch is already his and so are all the robes in the closet and every ring in the drawer. He forgets for a moment that his faithfulness has been and always will be rewarded.

No, he who has virtually everything, and who has in his hardworking, wonderful way earned it, lacks the one thing that might make him the complete man of the Lord he nearly is. He has yet to come to the compassion and mercy, the charitable breadth of vision to see that this is not a rival returning. It is his brother.

Holland calls this a "fictional affront." And he's right. The only reason I have become suddenly unhappy is "because another has had some good fortune as well."

I am under the false impression that, if my father loves my brother, he therefore loves me less. "But God does not work this way."

He does not mercilessly measure [us] against [our] neighbors. He doesn't even compare [us] with each other. His gestures of compassion toward one do not require a withdrawal or denial of love for [another]. He is divinely generous to [all of us].

The trick is to learn to feel that way about each other.

An example:

Fob began as a place where a few writers serious about the discipline could gather and help each other grow. And, I think, Fob has been a success. But I will make a few admissions here:

When Master Fob finished his third novel before I started my second, I felt like he wasn't leaving room for me in the marketplace.

When Melyngoch broke my heart on paper, I felt I might as well microwave my computer.

When Queen Zippergut read scenes that my wife laughed at more than she ever has at my stuff, I felt like fading away.

It's as if I think that the amount of talent God has given the world is limited, and every ounce of talent someone else shows is one more ounce that has been denied me.

Quoting Elder Holland quoting Henri J. M. Nouwen:

In a world that constantly compares people, ranking them as more or less intelligent, more or less attractive, more or less successful, it is not easy to really believe in a love [or a God] that does not do the same. When I hear someone praised, it is hard not to think of myself as less praiseworthy; when I read about the goodness and kindness of other people, it is hard not to wonder whether I myself am as good and kind as they; and when I see trophies, rewards, and prizes being handed out to special people, I cannot avoid asking myself why that didnÂ’t happen to me.

We are trained to compare ourselves to others, to find our worth in being more than someone else.

We shouldn't.

I'm glad to say that my fellow Fobsters have never struck me as being hateful towards each another just because they are also good. They've been quite good examples to me.

Among Elder Holland's recommendations for overcoming these prodigal tendencies are applauding the work of others and serving others. Fob has applauded me so roundly as to almost make me cry. They've selflessly helped me craft better work, leaving me better than I was.

This is Zion. These are the people who love you as themselves and find joy in your successes. When Master Fob became the first of us to make money, I don't remember us being ashamed of ourselves or hating him. And that's right--that is how God is with us.

To quote Nephi (whose personality I find annoying, but that's just me being wicked again),

Hath he [the Lord God] commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance.

Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden.

We are alprivilegeded. We are all equal candidates for salvation.

I know this is true. I still have many, many moments where I let another's success make me feel less, but I know this is a lie. I know God loves me like he loves you. And if I can learn to love you as he does, I can be truly happy for your successes--every bit as much as I am for mine--and I will do all I can for you. As you do for me.

Brothers and sisters, I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of us--insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesn't measure our talents or our looks; He doesn't measure our professions or our possessions. He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other. I know that if we will be faithful, there is a perfectly tailored robe of righteousness ready and waiting for everyone, "robes ... made ... white in the blood of the Lamb." May we encourage each other in our effort to win that prize is my earnest prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Amen.


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