From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #116 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 Friday, August 8 2003 Volume 02 : Number 116 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 22:57:39 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: [AML] Dutcher on KRAKUER, _Under the Banner of Heaven_ Richard Dutcher asked me to forward this to the list. D. Michael I recently finished Krakauer's book. The following is not a critique. It's just a partial response with random thoughts. And a fishing expedition to see if anyone else had similar thoughts. First of all, the book is very well-written. Compelling. The author knows how to put words together. I read the first few pages, which instantly hooked me, and I finished the book within 48 hours. Most books sit on my bedside table for weeks, begging to be finished. It was clear from the author's overview of early Mormon history that he did his research. Or (at least) Michael Quinn did his research, and Krakauer read Quinn. The book reminded me of Capote's IN COLD BLOOD. Both accounts horrified and saddened me. At the point in UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN where Krakauer describes the murders, I put the book aside for several hours and felt the need to pray, play with my kids, kiss my wife, admire the mountainside. I wanted to weep for the victims. So the writing was emotionally effective. I was duly horrified. Krakauer succeeds in making Mormon Fundamentalists look like homicidal, incestuous lunatics. He also makes mainstream Mormons look like closet lunatics, and he makes religious folk in general look like potential lunatics. But I guess that's one of the main questions the book grapples with: is religious faith a brand of insanity? Perhaps, as a person with religious faith, I am especially sensitive to the question. And if the answer is "yes," which is the answer Mr. Krakauer certainly suggests (without actually committing to) and which is the conclusion many readers will adopt after reading this book...as well-written and high-profile as it is, it really seems to me to be nothing more than the latest sensational anti-Mormon, anti-faith expose. Some problems (and, admittedly, I knew very little of the Lafferty murders before reading this book): 1. There was very little treatment of Allen Lafferty (the widower) after the murders. How did he deal with this? Is he still LDS? Does he have any opinion on his brothers' mental state? Does he struggle with guilt? 2. There was also very little treatment of Ron and Dan Lafferty (the murderers) before their introduction to fundamentalism. Krakauer briefly gives us the impression that they were warm, normal people (as if fundamentalism itself is the disease that causes them to turn into murderous psychos). I have a hard time believing that there wasn't evidence of their mental illnesses before their acceptance of fundamentalism. Maybe the author believes that their faith in mainstream Mormonism is sufficient evidence of mental imbalance. Surely, the trial documents had testimony of witnesses who would have testified of strange behavior and beliefs in earlier life. 3. Also, there was very little treatment of the Lafferty boys' mother. The author made her a fascinating character without attempting to explain her. To me, her behavior causes suspicion that perhaps all was not right in the Lafferty home when the boys were growing up. The early home life was left virtually unexplored. 4. There seemed to be no "control" family, no normal polygamists who weren't raping their children or killing people or having wacky "revelations." The few non-villainous polygamists are introduced after the author has already established polygamy as deranged. Krakauer appears to be dramatizing only the sensational episodes and thereby painting all Fundamentalists, and all Mormons, with a very broad brush. Surely there must be many (perhaps even a majority of) polygamist families who are living happy, peaceful, spiritually rich lives. I believe most readers will conclude after UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN that all polygamous men want to molest their 12-year-old daughters and slit the throats of anyone who interferes with their religious beliefs. Interestingly, the murdered woman, Brenda Lafferty (I hope that's the right name. I don't have the book in front of me) is portrayed as courageous, strong, and sane. And yet she was a Mormon. The rest of the book would lead one to believe that she was practically the only Mormon with these qualities. But then again, she was the victim in the story. And, in modern American journalism, it seems that we all fall into three categories: heroes, villains, and victims. 5. The author's approach to LDS history seemed to be to pull out all the sensational episodes: polygamy, Mountain Meadows, blood atonement, post-manifesto polygamy, Samuel Smith's "suspicious death," et cetera, et cetera. If it were less well-written and authored by a less-respected author, we could easily dismiss it as the National Inquirer's Encyclopedic History of Mormonism. The book rings an alarm and points a finger at potentially dangerous people in our society. It points an unfriendly finger at Mormon fundamentalists and, less directly but most certainly, at the mainstream Mormons standing close by. I'm concerned that UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN will further fuel an anti-religous sentiment in our culture. True, some of our politicians and even our president present themselves as men with religious faith, yet I detect a change in the wind. Perhaps it's because I'm in the entertainment industry where anti-religious bigotry is blatantly apparent. Soon, religious people may become the only group of people in America who, in our evolving sense of political correctness, will be deserving of prejudice, public mocking, and persecution. Perhaps I'm taking it too seriously. It's just a book, after all. But, then again, so was MEIN KAMPF. I could talk more (and would like to), but I have to get back to work. I find that the more I think about this book, the less I respect it. (Side note: I had the same experience with the Academy Award-winning film, "American Beauty." Immediately after seeing the film, I liked it. Then it started to unravel in my mind. Three days later, I hated it.) In many ways, Krakauer's book had an unexpected effect on me (and surely not the author's intended effect). I felt compassion for the fundamentalists. They are surely the victims of misrepresentation here. Krakauer's fundamentalist villains are so villainous. The polygamists lifestyles and belief systems themselves are revealed as so reprehensible. I simply cannot believe it. These people are being attacked. And I don't like to see anyone being attacked. Granted, they are an easy target. They are unpopular and few in number. Who is going to stand up and defend the polygamists? One final thought: is a writer from mainstream American culture really someone who should be casting stones at Mormon culture? The author writes from within a society that is up to its eyeballs in incest, child porn, teen pregnancy and abortion, divorce, serial murderers...need I go on? The pot is calling the kettle black (as my grandma used to say). Perhaps the author should turn his attention to his own hometown. Boulder isn't all that far from Littleton, come to think of it. What he finds in his own backyard might horrify him more than anything he found in Colorado City. Richard Dutcher - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 13:59:17 -0500 From: "Thom Duncan, replying from the Web" Subject: RE: [AML] Review of Krakauer and Others in _Salon_ I'll have to look this up and get back to you. It came up when I was doing research on the Lafferty's. They used it to justify the callous way they treated their wives. Thom - --- Original Message --- >Um, I must have missed that speech. Which brother was it that referred >to his wife or wives as chattel? I can't say as I've ever heard >anything of the kind. > >Jacob Proffitt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #116 ******************************