From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #364 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Tuesday, June 19 2001 Volume 01 : Number 364 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 20:25:21 -0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] UDALL, _The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint_ (SL Tribune) Udall Mints a Dickens of a Tale in 'Miracle Life' Sunday, June 17, 2001 BY BRANDON GRIGGS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE As a seventh-grader in rural St. John's, Ariz., Brady Udall once played a football game against a ramshackle rival school on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. The reservation school had the hopeless air of a prison. Its football field was littered with broken glass, and a cactus grew in one end zone. After St. John's beat the ragtag Apache players by some lopsided score, Udall and his teammates climbed back onto their shiny new bus to head home. Udall was gazing out of the bus when Apache students began hurling bottles, folding chairs and chunks of concrete from a nearby three-story dorm building, denting the bus and shattering its windows. In the seconds before the barrage, Udall locked eyes with an Apache boy staring back at him through the bars of one of the dorm's windows. The youth had broken teeth, scabbed hands and a expression of weary disdain. "For some reason, the look on that boy's face has never left me," says Udall, now 31. "I knew one day when I wrote a novel it would be the first thing I'd write about. I'll never know anything about that boy, but as the god of my own little universe, I decided to give him a story and a name." The boy's name and his story form Udall's debut novel, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, published earlier this month by W.W. Norton. A witty, wise and heartwrenching tale of a naive orphan's struggle to survive an often unforgiving world, Edgar Mint marks an ambitious step forward for Udall, whose previous book, 1997's Letting Loose the Hounds, was a collection of stories. Udall will read from The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, much of which is set in Utah, Thursday at The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City. He also will teach a short story workshop during the weeklong Writers at Work conference beginning June 24 at Westminster College. "One of the reasons I wanted to write this character [of Edgar Mint] was that I was given anything I needed in life," says Udall, whose great-uncles include former U.S. congressman and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall and former congressman Morris Udall, who ran for president in 1976. "And here you have this orphaned, half-breed kid who's grown up in exactly the opposite situation. One of the jobs of an artist is to step across the line and imagine the other. The last thing I wanted to do was write about myself." As conceived by Udall, the singular life of Edgar Mint is somehow both blessed and doomed almost from its start. Bastard son of a rebellious Apache girl and a bumbling would-be cowboy from Connecticut, Edgar experiences his life's defining moment at age 7 when a mailman's Jeep runs over his head. Left for dead by his drunken mother, the runty Edgar is miraculously revived at the local hospital by Barry Pinkley, a doctor who takes an intense and peculiar interest in the boy's well-being. After a long hospital stay, Edgar is shunted to the Willie Sherman school on the Apache reservation, a despairing, dead-end place filled with delinquent youths who torment him. "I knew it would get ugly. I just wasn't prepared for how ugly," says Udall of the novel's grim Willie Sherman chapters -- a locale inspired, of course, by his school's ill-fated visit for the football game. Interviewed by telephone, he says, "I can see some people getting upset that I'm portraying Native Americans this way. But to me it has nothing to do with race. It's poverty and alcoholism and abuse, and these kids are the result of that." Edgar perseveres and eventually is rescued from Willie Sherman by two LDS Church missionaries who find him a foster home with a kind but troubled Mormon family in rural (and fictional) Richland, Utah. Before long his unlikely savior Barry Pinkley resurfaces, setting the now teen-age Edgar on a new course to find the anguished mailman and show him the boy he ran over is still alive. Desperate for stability, Edgar cherishes his few possessions: a pearl-handled jackknife, a urinal puck and a Hermes Jubilee manual typewriter, on which he hammers out pages of gibberish. By the novel's end he has become an indelible character: sweet-natured but sneaky, docile yet given to impulsive acts that propel his life in new directions. But he is no hero. Over the course of the book Edgar lies, steals and evens commits murder -- albeit an arguably merciful one. "I [originally] imagined him as a little more noble," says Udall, who expects some readers might balk at Edgar's behavior and at the cruelty inflicted upon him. "I never imagined I'd write a book in which I'd brutalize a small child for 500 pages." Early reviews of Edgar Mint have been anything but brutal. Author Junot Diaz called the book "a story that tears at you and calls you back to it." Kirkus Reviews called Edgar Mint "a remarkably assured debut novel that brings to life a unique world. A bit of a miracle in its own right." Novelist Tony Earley said, "If Dickens had been born in Arizona, he might have written a book like this." Other reviewers have compared Edgar Mint to John Irving's picaresque A Prayer for Owen Meany. Most, however, invoke Dickens -- a comparison that makes Udall squirm. "That's a little much for me," he says. "I think that's just because there's an orphan in it." Edgar Mint also attracted the attention of Hollywood, or at least of R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe, whose fledgling film production company optioned the rights to the novel. Udall traces his writing career to about age 12, when he won $25 in a poetry contest. He won Playboy magazine's fiction contest while a graduate student at the prestigious Iowa Writer's Workshop. The success of his first book, Letting Loose the Hounds, led in 1998 to a teaching post at Franklin and Marshall College in the Amish country of southeastern Pennsylvania. This fall, Udall starts teaching at Southern Illinois University -- not the ideal job, perhaps, but closer to his beloved West. Udall graduated from Brigham Young University and considers Utah his second home. The last third of Edgar Mint unfolds in the Southern Utah home of Clay and Lana Madsen, a well-meaning Mormon couple with marital problems and a sexually curious teen-age daughter. Edgar soon discovers Lana is having an affair with another man. "I can see a lot of Mormon people might be upset by the way that family is portrayed," says Udall, himself a practicing member of the LDS Church. "I don't mean to offend anybody, but I think sometimes it's kind of necessary. It's high time somebody out there, if not me, wrote about Mormons in a real and honest way." Somebody recently asked Udall if he wants to be considered a Mormon writer. He said no. "This is not because I am embarrassed by my faith and culture, but because I am working hard to create the kind of art my culture seems set on rejecting," he says. "We, as a people, have always been a bit immature when it comes to art. We have always been threatened by anything that doesn't fit squarely within our system of belief. Good art will always be complex, contradictory and will resist easy judgment -- all things that would make any good Mormon nervous." Will The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint make some readers nervous? Maybe. More likely, it will make them root for the scruffy boy with the lumpy head and a profound longing for a home he has never known. "It sounds corny, but this book has some spiritual aspect to it," Udall says. "There's power in accepting who you are, in finding the place you belong instead of the place people tell you that you belong." S.L. Readings Brady Udall will read from The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint Thursday at 7 p.m. at The King's English Bookshop, 1511 S. 1500 East in Salt Lake City. He will read again from the book June 28 at 7:30 p.m. at the Jewett Center, 1250 E. 1700 South on the campus of Westminster College. For more about Udall or his new novel, visit the book's Web site at www.edgarmint.com. (Forwarded by Andrew Hall) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 14:53:35 -0600 From: Melissa Proffitt Subject: [AML] Critical Anthology (was: Missionary Stories) On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 21:50:47 -0600, Scott and Marny Parkin wrote: >Question for everyone-- > >Would an anthology of short fiction featuring short comments by the=20 >authors and short interpretive essays by reviewers or critics be=20 >interesting? I know I love to hear authors talk about their fiction,=20 >and I would love to see both the author's and a critic's view of the=20 >same text. Would any of you find that interesting? Would you pay=20 >money to see work by some of the better-known names in Mormon lit=20 >handled this way? > >Just curious. I've been kicking that idea around for quite a while=20 >and am interested in the marketability of such a project. One of the reasons I still like Isaac Asimov's story and essay = collections is because in most of them, he provides commentary on the circumstances surrounding the creation, sale or publication of each item (as well as addenda and corrections in some cases). I find this very interesting. = It doesn't necessarily make me like the *stories* any better, or feel that I understand them better; the mini-essays are just...extras. Like getting = a DVD and watching the bonus footage or director's commentaries. Of course, the essays have to be readable in their own right for this to = be truly worthwhile. And I think I'd prefer reading the essays if the = authors and critics were writing them independently and not in response to each other (for example, an author refuting the critic's interpretation). But= I can imagine some Mormon lit works that I'm not terribly interested in reading on their own that I'd be motivated to look at in this format. Any ideas on specific short fiction you'd want to include? Existing = works, or brand-new fiction? (I'm sort of thinking of an anthology of existing works in my response above, but it would probably work either way.) Melissa Proffitt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 15:23:45 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] _The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd_ > This is in response to both Jacob and Darvell's posts. > > > > The biggest reason that liked the film is because it made me feel that > > Christ really does live and that he visited these people. > > Yes, I agree with that. The first time I saw it I really felt like He was > my brother, not just some invisible God somewhere. > I don't need a film to do that for me. The Holy Ghost has pretty taken care of that testimony. I already knew he wasn't an invisible god, since we've been on speaking terms (me praying to him, him speaking to my heart and mind) for about 50 years now. > Someone made an inference that crying is not a sign of the spirit. Perhaps > for the person who made that statement, it isn't. But many people cry when > they feel the spirit. I have had occasions when that has happened and it > would be wrong for someone to suggest that I didn't feel the spirit. How > could they know that? Do people cry when they fell the Spirit, or do they cry because they've heard a moving story. I can't speak in public about my wonderful children without choking up. Is that the Spirit, or just my fatherly love taking over my normally sour-puss exterior? > It seems Hollywood can't do it right. They only get pieces. Richard wouldn't get it right, either, at least not for everybody. Everyone thinks they know what Christ is like, and I'm willing to bet that no two of those concepts are the same. (For instance, I can make a good case that Christ was a radical Democrat. Others can make an equally compelling case that he was a gentle Republican.) > For instance, one movie I saw of Christ showed Mary as a cold mother and > Joseph as an old man when Christ was just a little boy. Well, Mary couldn't > have possibly been cold. Never? Why not? Wasn't Mary human? Aren't humans sometimes cold, and sometimes warm and loving? > Most show Christ being sprinkled instead of baptised. > > One showed Christs humor and had him playing with kids, but later had him > angry and pushing people away. Was Christ laughing when he kicked people out of the Temple. Was he kind and considerate when he called the Pharisees sepulchers of dead-men's bones. > > One had Satan, during Christ's temptation, dressed in a suit. Well, Satan > might appear to men in a suit now, but in Christ's time I don't think he > would. That could be an artistic decision. Unless you were to insist that the only way to tell Christ's life is to be absolutely historically accurate, this shouldn't make much difference. > Most have Christ not accepting of his role, and not knowing who he is. He > comes across as a victim, unable to make choices. Christ grew line upon line. He didn't know who he was from the start, and even appeared to doubt at the very end. "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani," He cried on the cross. "God, God, Why hast thou forsaken me?" What is that, if not a temporary loss of faith? - -- Thom Duncan Playwrights Circle an organization of professionals - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 15:35:49 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: [AML] Re: Play the New Game: "All Movies Have Happy Endings!" > Actually, I agree with your premise. I think most stories do end up > with at least some positive aspect. But I also think it's become > popular to emphasize the negative or dark parts of the resolution. > > Still, I'd like to see your take on a couple of films. > > _Jacob's Ladder_ In movies like this, it is important to not make the mistake that the ending is the final scene. The true ending in these kinds of films is what the audience member takes away with them. In the case of Jacob's Ladder, it's the theme that is the happy ending: Redemption is good for the soul. > _Seven_ The happy ending, again, is what the film tells us about life. With regards to religion, the film tells us that fanaticism leads to horrible actions. The film also shows the danger of obsession. > _War of the Roses_ > > On this last one, I don't think it's fair to have put that little > frame story on it, and that's where the positive resolution comes > from--the frame. The actual story of the war between the Roses ending > with the chandelier scene was pretty darned close to a perfectly > hopeless ending. I don't think it's fair to judge a movie entirely by its ending, but by it's entirety. This film shows us ONE couple for whom reconciliation wasn't possible. Even without the frame story (I would have like the film better without it, BTW), we should come away with the commitment to never be like these two people. > >From adamszoo@sprintmail.com Sat Jun 16 12:38:56 2001 > > Old Yeller. All dogs go to heaven. > Message in a Bottle. (I've seen that many men think that the hero dying > bravely and the heroine mourning for him thereafter is a happy ending. It > isn't.) Never seen it. > Okay Thom, I've got one. Thelma and Louise. > > So, are you going to say that Thelma and Louise driving off a cliff is a > happy ending because they got to avoid the consequences of their actions? > Or maybe it's a happy ending because they got to go out in a blaze of glory. The moment of their death is not happy. No death is. But I came away uplifted (first of all by the great performances) , with a renewed desire to treat all the women in my life better than I had been treating them up to that time. The ending of such movies act more as catalysts, than wrapping up points. Unlike film where the man and woman marry and all is happy at the end, movies like Thelma and Louise don't have endings, but continue to live on in the minds of the audience members. - -- Thom Duncan Playwrights Circle an organization of professionals - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 15:42:38 -0600 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Richard Dutcher interview (Deseret News) At 08:06 PM 6/17/01 +0000, you wrote: >Deseret News, Sunday, June 17, 2001 > >Richard Dutcher, Mormon moviemaker When I saw God's Army, one reaction I had was a very maternal one: "Those boys need a grownup in there to take care of them and make them be nice to each other!" That was after the greenie's confrontation with a major practical joke (which I never like, but I think it's a guy thing). The second reaction I had was to feel grateful that I was kind to the two young men who knocked on my door in the middle of a drab housing complex thirty-some years ago. I had no idea how tough it was for them. I took them in, listened to their discussions, fed them--and how did they pay me back? By ducking me under water! One of my elders was not known for his tact. When I agreed to be baptized, he asked me if I had a white dress and I told him no. He called the bishop's wife and said, "Is there a lady in the ward fat enough to own a dress Sister Hume can be baptized in?" HIs companion turned beet red (as he was constantly doing), but I laughed and laughed. I loved it that God uses regular people to do his work. I was resisting everything those two young men told me, even though it all seemed wonderful, until they made me pray about it and I got a definite answer. Thank heavens young men are willing to go through all they do in order to bring the gospel to those of us in need of it. I love what Richard Ducher has done as a filmmaker. He's not too shabby an actor, either! barbara hume - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 00:20:42 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] re: Mormon Visual Trappings (comp) >From REWIGHT@telusplanet.net Fri Jun 15 13:35:18 2001 I haven't said anything on this topic. I thought it would pass quickly. But here it is. My husband has a full beard and mustache. Has for years. He simply looks better in it. It hides his double chin.:-) And I think that's why he wears it. No psycological explanation other than he likes the way he looks in it and his wife does too. I don't understand why there would be such controversy over facial hair. To me, it's just a personal style. I would be upset if the church decided that all women had to wear their hair a certain length and a certain style. It would be stepping on my identity. It would be an attempt to take away my free agency although I would still have the free agency to follow the dictate or not. Frankly I have trouble telling the GA's apart. They all have the same hairstyle (or no hair), all clean shaven, all old and all dressed alike. Someone said somewhere in one of these posts a quote along the lines of "if the prophet doesn't have facial hair, then we shouldn't either". That isn't the real quote, I can't remember what it was. Anyway, does that mean if the prophet is bald then all men should shave their heads? This ear peircing thing bothers me too. I only have one set of piercings, but I don't consider someone with two sets on their way to damnation. And frankly for all those single women out there, it might be a good idea for every man to get an ear peircing, - then you can know what side he plays for. I can understand counsel against tatoos and piercings all over the body. I can understand counsel on modest clothing (although I don't think a girl showing her knees and upper arms is being immodest). But sometimes things go overboard. Forcing YW to kneel down to see if her skirt touches the floor before she gets into the dance, is just wrong. If she has to kneel down to prove her skirt is long enough, then it probably covers her quite well. A real miniskirt doesn't require the wearer to kneel on the floor to prove it's too short. Yet at the same time, no one blinks when young men take off their shirts to play basketball. I've also read some of the rantings from BYU men on their website. Blaming the women because these men can't keep their own thoughts moral. One young man complained about one strap book bags that the women wear across their bodies which happen to emphasize their breasts. I remember an incident when I was in YW. At that time the YW had to wear dresses to every dance. Someone brought a non member friend who happened to show up in pants. The dance was stopped, and one of the sisters stood in the middle of the floor, and ranted about dress standards. I wonder what was accomplished by that. If I had been that girl who showed up in pants I would have been mortified and never stepped into an LDS church again. What did happen for those of us who were also in YA. (I was straddling both at the time.) Is that we decided that girls were allowed to wear pants at every dance. The rule got thrown out the window for YA and no one complained. The church as it grows, becomes filled with those of us who are rebellious souls. Why? We must rebel to join the church. We rebel against parents, those who are anti-mormon, a drinking society, etc. We choose, by joining to be non-conformists. And then we wonder why the church asks us to conform. Anna Wight - ------------------------------------------- >From jerry.tyner@qlogic.com Fri Jun 15 17:36:52 2001 Or Pioneer Day from what I have heard in the past. It has been several years since I have been to Utah during that week. This year we will be since my son is entering the MTC on July 25th. Twenty years ago they would pretend to lock you up if you didn't have a beard or facial hair. Jerry Tyner - --------------------------------------------------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 00:20:52 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] re: Manipulative Endings (comp) >From eileens99@bigplanet.com Mon Jun 18 14:25:44 2001 >>Jacob Proffitt wrote: >> So my question is: if that is manipulative, then please explain how any >> story depicting sacrifice and hardship, that ends with true reward, can >> not be manipulative? >This is how to tell the difference. Have someone kick a dog on screen. Tears >well up in the viewers. That's manipulation. >Have someone kick Hitler. If tears well up for the pain Hitler feels, that's not >manipulative. >Thom Can't we find examples between these two extremes that give an idea of manipulation or not manipulative? Something a little more subtle? Eileen eileens99@bigplanet.com - -------------------------------------------- >From jsavage@smartshop.com Mon Jun 18 14:32:03 2001 Thom, you have used this type of analogy several times, and I want to be sure I understand what you are saying before I choose to agree or disagree with you. So, for clarification, are you saying that literature is only non-manipulative if it evokes an emotional response that you would not normally feel toward a given scene or character? And if this is what you are saying, would that mean that a book like "Where the Red Fern Grows," that I always cry at the ending of, is manipulative because I am feeling the pain of a young boy about the loss of his dogs, and everybody loves kids and dogs? - -Jeff [Savage] - ------------------------------------------------ >From Jacob@proffitt.com Mon Jun 18 15:03:57 2001 How does that have anything to do with realistically showing sacrifice, hardship and true rewards? I don't think that Testaments is emotionally manipulative just because they show a blind father being healed. In fact, showing the coming of the savior to a believing people would be dishonest if it didn't show him healing the afflicted. Further, my familiarity with the story of the father, with how much he looked forward to seeing the savior and how he is content with his sacrifice when it turns out he can't see Him, deepened a spiritual moment that spoke deeply of sacrifice and blessings. I appreciated this internal look into Christ healing the blind because of the meaning it gave that phrase and the new realization of a miracle's human impact. So if this scene is dismissed as manipulative, I honestly want to know how you could show a reward for sacrifice that isn't manipulative? Is "manipulative" a label that we use to dismiss any time the just are rewarded? It seems to me that we should be trying to find ways to show how the just can find reward for their very real sacrifices. Jacob Proffitt - -------------------------------------------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 15:52:30 -0600 From: Steve Subject: [AML] Re: Play the New Game: "All Movies Have Happy Endings!" Thom, What a service! You could set up a booth outside theaters and help folks through the steps of mourning (denial, acceptance, anger, intense quilting, etc.) after heartbreaking movies, sending them home with a song in their hearts and cash in your pocket. Just last night Johanne and I watched "Amadeus" and I'd LOVE to hear about that happy ending. :-) Steve ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ skperry@mac.com http://StevenKappPerry.com "Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana." - -Groucho Marx - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 19:04:24 EDT From: RichardDutcher@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd Thanks to all of you for your response to my comments on "Testaments." I already regret having voiced my opinion in such a public way. My comments would be more appropriate in a private conversation with the director and producers. There is such power in the story of Christ, in his words and teachings. They shine through and, for many viewers, compensate for any failings in the storytelling. I am grateful for this. But how much more effective would our major church films be if the central theme was supported by expert storytelling? I pray that we LDS filmmakers are someday artistically worthy of the great stories we've been given to tell. Richard - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 23:22:59 -0600 From: "Eric D. Snider" Subject: [AML] Re: Play the New Game: "All Movies Have Happy Endings!" Steve Perry: > >Just last night Johanne and I watched "Amadeus" and I'd LOVE to hear about >that happy ending. > In many cases, what gives a film a happy ending is the fact that it _is_ ending. Eric D. Snider - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 23:50:44 -0600 From: Scott and Marny Parkin Subject: [AML] Re: Play the New Game: "All Movies Have Happy Endings!" Thom Duncan wrote: > > _Jacob's Ladder_ > >In movies like this, it is important to not make the mistake that the >ending is the final scene. The true ending in these kinds of films is >what the audience member takes away with them. > >In the case of Jacob's Ladder, it's the theme that is the happy ending: >Redemption is good for the soul. We could quibble about whether that's actually a happy ending or not. I'm not convinced that an end to pain is the same thing as a happy ending, and I'm not entirely sure that endings beyond the end of the film are fair game for your challenge (though I happen to believe strongly in the concept of endings that point toward future happiness without necessarily showing immediate happiness). But this raises a different issue for me. I've been accused of writing some pretty dark stories that spend most of the text with the character descending to the bottom of his own psyche and the story concluding with the moment where POV comes to some understanding about his context that he didn't have before. I always end my stories with what I consider to be an upturn, though I would tend to stop short of saying that my stories end happily. I shoot more for hopeful than happy, with a sense that POV has now learned what he needs to know to find and/or create some future happiness (or at least find peace). So... What constitutes a happy ending? And at what point does that happy ending intersect with the dreaded manipulative ending? For the most part, our religion teaches that positive resolution is always possible (with a very short list of exceptional cases). Does that not suggest that Mormons are almost required to tell stories of hope, or at least leave hope open as a real possible resolution beyond the bounds of the story? > > _Seven_ > >The happy ending, again, is what the film tells us about life. With >regards to religion, the film tells us that fanaticism leads to horrible >actions. The film also shows the danger of obsession. And ends with the POV character, the guy we're supposed to feel for and identify with and hope for, giving in to the inevitable force of sin and becoming the embodiment of the seventh deadly sin. In other words, while the story may have illustrated the unhappy result of fanaticism, it also suggests that we are unable to escape either the fact or the result of it. The bad guy wins in pretty much every way, and illustrates his superiority over the rest of us. Which is hardly a happy ending in my book. I can choose to impose a happy ending by interpreting one out of my own philosophy, but I would argue that such an interpretation comes completely independent of the text, not as a result of the text. (Now had he chosen to walk away and live with the pain of not getting his revenge, that would have been happy, IMO. But he didn't. To me, he failed utterly.) > > _War of the Roses_ >I don't think it's fair to judge a movie entirely by its ending, but by >it's entirety. This film shows us ONE couple for whom reconciliation >wasn't possible. Even without the frame story (I would have like the >film better without it, BTW), we should come away with the commitment to >never be like these two people. Right. The film shows us two people that were so selfish that they couldn't let the other win on a single point. With his dying breath he tries to communicate a concept of love to his wife; with hers last breath she rejects his overture. No redemption, no positive resolution, no happiness in sight. I can't argue with you that the couple is not shown as a model of good behavior, but I'm still not sure that showing evil people coming to evil ends is the same thing as a happy ending. Again, I'd very much like to hear your (and others') opinion on the differences between a happy ending, a positive ending, an illustration of good through vivid presentation of the bad, and any other flavors people can come up with. Are they all versions of the same thing? Or are they fundamentally different? I think they are, but I've already taken up too much space. I'll let someone else talk now. Scott Parkin - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 16:09:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Yeechang Lee Subject: [AML] Mormon Studies Makes _The New Yorker_ >From pp. 63-64 of the 11 June _The New Yorker_ (with a cover every present or past New Yorker will instantly appreciate), in the midst of a profile of Stanley Fish, former bigtime bad boy of the Duke English department and current dean at the University of Illinois at Chicago: At 9 A.M. on a recent Monday, seven people clustered at one end of a long table for the weekly deans' meeting . . . The first topic on the agenda was a literature professor who Fish was anxious to lure to Chicago to head the Afro-American Studies department . . . There were a few other items of interest. Jewish Studies wanted to hire a lecturer who proposed to commute to Chicago from Budapest. Fish had heard about a donor who might be interested in funding a program in Mormon studies. He had also heard, from a former student, about a scholar whose specialty was Mormonism and homosexuality, and he had spent some gleeful moments speculating about what the reaction of the donor might be should such a professor be appointed. Yeechang "One of the ways I keep in touch with civilization" Lee - -- Yeechang Lee | I am a child of God Goldman Sachs | Columbia | Bronx Science | And he has sent me here | Has given me an earthly home | With parents kind and dear - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 02:28:10 -0400 From: "Tom Johnson" Subject: Re: [AML] Missionary Stories (pt 1 of 2) > > > > Reader response can be infinitely > > > varied and all absolutely true, despite opposing conclusions. > > > >For some reason I despise these kinds of statements. Sorry. I don't think > >reader response can be infinitely varied, first of all. Try it. How many > >responses can you imagine to Mitchell's work? Suppose I say that I thought > >it possessed a striking similarity to Macbeth. Now wouldn't that be a little > >odd? A great treatise (non-metaphoric) on elephants. Huh? But this is beside > >the main point of our discussion. > > Infinite variation doesn't require infinite digression from the text. > The reader that thought it strikingly similar to Macbeth might have a > point if he explains why. The reader who thought it was a treatise on > elephants was just plain wrong. > > Despise to your heart's content. That's your reader response, wrong > though I may feel it to be as the author whose text you critiqued > with it. But I think it is possible to read Mitchell's work and have > completely opposite opinions on the same text. I never said opposite opinions weren't possible. I wouldn't have to > work very hard to justify a reading of Danube that showed the author > to be a mystic who placed as much value on German folklore as on > revealed religion, arguing that the failure to show the missionary > program as in any way noble proved the author's disaffection with the > organization of the church. I would find such a contention opposite > to my reading of the story, but I can see the elements of the story > that support it. If you can find two dozen plausible readings, markedly different, you'd win me over to the reader response crowd. I'm convinced that in any given cultural system, there are only so many meanings possible in a given text. There are many cultural systems, sure, but not an infinite amount. Kubla Kahn has about ten markedly different interpretations, but not ten thousand. > I was at a tax seminar the other day I'm sorry. >learning about how to compute sales and use tax in the state of Utah I'm very very sorry. >It turns out there are 7 specific points of distinction that require an evaluation by the > preparer and could lead to a different tax rate. That means > approximately 5000 potentially different (though not always > exclusive) tax rates. > > I thought there were significantly more than 7 potential points of > reader divergence in _Angel of the Danube._ What is the difference between a "variation" and a "digression"? Don't both of these nouns imply a displacement from a previous point? And I wasn't advancing the idea that there couldn't be 7 or 5,000 different readings of Mitchell's text, only that an infinite amount was not possible. Not possible because I have established--by your agreement--that an elephantine reading of the text would be implausible. If that reading is not possible, and that reading exists somewhere within the infinite possibilities of readings, then the number of readings of the text is not infinite. > > > > >I also believe the writer is one of those readers who's allowed to express a > > > response to his own work. > > > >Yes, everyone has their rights of expression, but I wouldn't trust a > >writer's reading of his own work. The writer is too steeped in his own > >intentions to see more objectively what is actually written. The writer > >often desires to see his own intentions succeed--I remember Mitchell's > >response just one week ago, "I had thought his desire to 'get through' to > >the Austrians was quite pronounced." What if you define art as "the > >unintended something that happens between point A and B" (David Plante). If > >you accept this curious statement about unintentions, then unless the author > >has an incredible sense of distance (or the work is far behind him), it is > >difficult for him to see past what he wanted his work to be, and to the > >actual art he has produced. > > Another point of simple disagreement. I think the author's intentions > and opinions of their own work matter. I think the narrative intent > of a story is instructive in understanding how and why scenes were > chosen and specific POVs constructed. I think knowing what the author > intended provides an even more interesting context in which to > discuss other meanings in the text. It also gives me a whole separate > area of analysis where I can argue how well the author reached his > own narrative goals. Where did I say that understanding the authorial intent didn't matter at all? I said that in interpreting a text, the author's criticisms are tainted by his own experience of writing the text, and those experiences distort his reading. Sure an author's perspective is useful in terms of understanding what he was aiming for, how he did what he did, what his technique was, but when it comes to interpreting what is actually on the page, the meaning that is there, one needs an outsider point of view. It's like traveling. When you visit a foreign place for the first time, you can often see it with greater clarity than those who have lived their all their lives. > > As a would-be author, I like to believe that my choices have > something to do with the success of the story, otherwise storytelling > becomes little more than shouting out some vague plot outlines and > letting all the details be filled in by the individual readers. If > Mitchell had just shouted out "Austria is weird! Love is good! Life > is hard! Missions are hard to interpret!" and walked away, I would > say he had failed to produce even rudimentary art, though I would > agree that the author's comments on his own text were at best trivial. > I was just reading over that Brady Udall interview, and I was struck by how much Udall felt like the story was writing itself rather than he was writing the story. Here are two excerpts: "I [originally] imagined him as a little more noble," says Udall, who expects some readers might balk at Edgar's behavior and at the cruelty inflicted upon him. "I never imagined I'd write a book in which I'd brutalize a small child for 500 pages." "I knew it would get ugly. I just wasn't prepared for how ugly," says Udall of the novel's grim Willie Sherman chapters . . . ." How much is the author in control of the text? Plante's definition of art, "something that happens between points A and B that is not intended," seems to harmonize here with Udall's construction of Mint. Udall originally intended Edgar to be more noble, but something unintended happened with that--he ended up brutalizing him. He didn't intent for the Shermann chapters to get so ugly, they just did. Surely when you wrote your cat story, it pulled you in directions you perhaps did not initially intend to go. Plante is saying that those unintended directions are crucial--they are the backbone of the art. I'm not sure I understand why you resist that so much. I'm not saying that the author need have no intentions at all, only that the realization of those intentions does not produce the art. > And if your narrative goal is to justify why criticism is more > important than the work being criticized, then I think you have to > take that with a grain of salt as well. How can you separate the two if the text exists only in the minds of the readers? > > >Elizabeth Hardwick once put it like this: Would you trust a pig's advice on > >the nutritional value of pork? > > I wouldn't inherently mistrust it. I would certainly have to put it > into a context, since I'm not convinced that being a pig makes one an > expert on nutrition. But if I wanted to find out what it's like to be > a pig, I would tend to trust a pig's opinion over that of a > nutritionist. But the question is not, "what's it like being a pig?" The question is, "what is the nutritional value of pork?" > > It depends on what you want to know. Yes, meaning is an individual > thing. But intent can be a great clarifier of texts for those of us > who want to know why choices were made and what the expected effect > of those choices was. When Udall says that Edgar Mint does not resemble David Copperfield in any other aspect than being an orphan, do you believe him? I thought the whole narrative style of _Mint_ was dripping with Charles Dickens. Do you think Udall would have a motive for not wanting Mint to be derivative? > > >Authors are hesitant to limit the interpretation of their to only their > >intentions--they'd rather have them meet those intentions and far exceed > >them. They want it to mean many different things to different people, and if > >the author steps up and says X means this and Y means that, then he'll no > >doubt put off the reader who felt so strongly that X meant other things. > >Plus, I just don't see what the author is really going to add to the text. > >It's like a car. You can have the mechanic of the engine explain how he > >intended it to run, like a racecar, idle quiet as a mouse, accelerate like > >lightening (wow, three cliches in a row!), or you can just take it out for a > >long spin yourself. Ultimately, what the mechanic intended with the engine > >doesn't amount to jack squat. (no offense to jack, btw.) This is, of course, > >the intentional fallacy. > > Again, we just disagree, though I think I see some of the reasons for > it. I agree that the author is not qualified to make absolute > pronouncements about meaning--meaning is a concept in the mind of the > reader--but I still think the author's intent goes a long way to > explaining how and why the novel was constructed and presented as it > was. But the way the novel was constructed and presented was not really the point of the discussion. The point is what the novel means. Of course "means" is an ambiguous verb. Do you agree that there is a difference between construction and interpretation? Of course a reader will be able to offer little on the construction, and more on interpretation, and yes that interpretation will be distorted by the reader's unique experiences, as will the author's interpretation be likewise distorted, but the experiences of the author are of a different variety than the experiences of the reader. The author intended something, the reader usually did not. My overall point is this: just because an author says something about his or her text doesn't mean that such a thing exists in the text. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I take your point to be something different, that authorial intention has some value. Fine, I agree with that. But it little interpretive value. > > The mechanic's intent most certainly does matter in the development > of the car. If he intended to create a speedy, powerful touring car > and instead produced a slow, underpowered go-cart, then the mechanic > failed and I have no appreciation of his skill, understanding, or > application of his craft. I will tend to view his future promises > with mistrust or open suspicion. You do not believe, then, in serendipity? > If this go-cart is marketed as a competitor to the Ferrari 308 GTS, > then I think the mechanic's intention goes a long way to explaining > the price tag and the slick ad campaign. That he failed to meet the > engineering quality of a Yugo is something he needs to explain to his > investors and buyers. > Once he finishes the car, if it's a Yugo instead of a Ferrari, of course he should sell it as a Yugo. But as much as the author wants the car to be a Ferrari, if it's a Yugo it's a Yugo it's a Yugo. Whatever the author intended the car to be is irrelevant in the interpretation of the text's meaning. And since I think unintentions are important in a text (for reasons stated above), I don't think the writer is a bad one who let's the text drive him instead of slavedriving the text. Ultimately the mechanic metaphor breaks down with the author. Building an engine is only partially analogous to writing a book--the two are ultimately different beasts. You can stretch any metaphor to its breaking point. > I agree that the fact the mechanic claims Ferrari design principles > doesn't make his car a Ferarri. But it does help me understand the > finished product in a more complete way Suppose Mitchell were to confess that he intended something much different in his book, that he didn't intend Barry to fall in love with Magdalena at all, that's just the path the book took. Does that make him an inferior artist, because the text pulled him in a way he didn't originally intend to go? That's what you're saying. Above you said, "If he intended to create a speedy, powerful touring car and instead produced a slow, underpowered go-cart, then the mechanic failed and I have no appreciation of his skill, understanding, or application of his craft." Are you saying that intention must match production to be a good artist? If so, I think many artists will disagree and say the best books resist the strongest narrative intentions. , and to evaluate more fully > how and why choices were made. Evaluating a text isn't like giving a score on a swimming dive. It's not like saying, oh, the diver attempted a triple back twist, but ended up with only a double twist, therefore the score we shall give is a 7. That's what you seem to be doing by matching up intention with production. I think we're confusing two different things here. I'm talking about textual meaning, and you're talking about textual construction. If you have to explain to me how you constructed your cat story in order for me to appreciate its meaning, doesn't that make it a weak story? I shouldn't have to learn about how the text was constructed in order to understand the text's meaning. Learning about its construction will of course alter the meaning I see in it. For example, reading Dutcher's bio in that last interview post has altered some of the meaning I now see in God's Army. I can't watch the scene with the African American missionary explaining his conversion story anymore without thinking of Dutcher in there. That I view the finished product as a > go-cart is my right, despite the $200K price tag place there by the > manufacturer. > > As a writer, I find wthe riter's intentions quite instructive because > I want to be a better writer. Of course. It's usually very interesting to read about the author's intentions, and then see what happened. The "what happened" part to those intentions is usually the most interesting part. > > Question for everyone-- > > Would an anthology of short fiction featuring short comments by the > authors and short interpretive essays by reviewers or critics be > interesting? I know I love to hear authors talk about their fiction, > and I would love to see both the author's and a critic's view of the > same text. Would any of you find that interesting? Would you pay > money to see work by some of the better-known names in Mormon lit > handled this way? I would read the author's words on how they wrote their books, their process of writing, perhaps what they intended with the work, but when the author steps in and begins to tell me what the text means, that's when I think your project will plummett. When Udall steps in and says "Edgar Mint is nothing at all like anything Charles Dickens; in fact, orphanage is the only shared element," etc. Of course Udall doesn't want to be derivative of another author; he doesn't want to be "that Dickens copy." The common reader, on the other hand, might not have such strong personal distortions. And of course there are always those Apache orphan readers, who can read Udall's book and tell him he's full of *^%^$. Tom - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #364 ******************************