From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #202 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 Wednesday, October 22 2003 Volume 02 : Number 202 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 20:14:23 -0700 From: "Kathy Tyner" Subject: Re: [AML] Language of Prayer I believe you misunderstood me. The tu' form is not merely friendly, it is intimately familial. In other words, Father wishes us to address him as our true Father. In past times with spanish, (and I know native speakers as well, one of them is a family member), an older relative like a grandmother would address a grandchild in the tu' form but insist the child reply back in the formal, thus preserving a boundary. I was remarking upon that God doesn't put up that barrier per se, but asks that we address him in the intimate form and he replies back in the same manner. I like that concept. Obviously, language changes and thee and thou have come to be thought of as formal english and arguements are made that addressing Diety that way is a show of respect and reverence. But even when it was considered familiar, it was considered proper to use in the language of prayer, as that is how it was translated in the King James version. Although the discussion is primarily about english, our language has borrowed a number of words and concepts from the romance languages so I thought my remarks pertinent to it. I am aware of the many nuances that exist in asian languages, (in many languages, really). There are a lot of asians in my area of Orange County. In times past, it's been a real challenge to contact and teach the gospel to them because of certain aspects of the language and culture. We had Cambodian neighbors interested in the Church, but the same words used for The Holy Ghost also meant demon in their language and it was tough for the missionaries to get the person past that barrier and understand the difference in the natures of the beings described. So, obviously you have to taylor the message to the audience. Kathy Tyner Orange County, CA - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 22:53:28 -0600 From: "Nan P. McCulloch" Subject: Re: [AML] Pictures in homes Have you noticed the art of Walter Rane. I find his art more interesting than most. It might be a good compromise for you and your wife. Nan McCulloch - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 23:09:57 -0600 From: "Nan P. McCulloch" Subject: Re: [AML] familiar pronouns and prayer A sweet lady from the South in our ward addresses the Lord as Sir throughout her prayers. One Sunday she petitioned God to bring back the Relief Society Magazine, because she sorely missed having it in her life. Nan McCulloch - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 06:31:41 -0600 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] (SL Trib) Larry H. Miller as Movie Mogul Quote from Larry Miller: "If you aren't > successful in financial ventures, you don't earn the right to keep=20 > doing them, and I don't care if you're selling cars or owning a=20 > basketball team or making films." Of course Larry is right in a way. But I am surely absolutely breath-takingly relieved that Van Gogh didn't listen to this philosophy. Marilyn Brown - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:20:10 -0600 From: "David Hansen" Subject: [AML] Dean HUGHES, _How Many Roads?_ (Review) Review =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Dean Hughes, "How Many Roads?" Volume 3 of the "Hearts of the Children" series Bookcraft 2003 467 pages $22.95 Reviewed by Dave Hansen I can't help being a Dean Hughes fan. The more snobbish side of me screams out that the dialogue isn't perfect, the characters are somewhat typecast, and the dialogue is sometimes hokey. Still, when I pick up one of these books it reminds me of that old pair of sweats that you just don't part with because they're so comfortable. I often find myself willing to overlook its faults and just enjoy the story. That's not to say that the issues this book deals with are light, but merely that it fits my experiences. "How Many Roads?" is the third book of a planned five in the Hearts of the Children series, and follows four "grandchildren" (one is an in-law) of Alexander and Bea Thomas beginning in the turbulent year of 1968. Gene, 23 and newly married, struggles with his wife's frustration over being pregnant, and his imminent departure to Vietnam. Kathy, 22, finishes her schooling at Smith College "back east" and becomes involved in the Democratic convention riots in Chicago in 1968 while working for the McCarthy presidential campaign. She also tries on new philosophical beliefs and receives romantic advances from one of her Smith professors. Diane, 20, has dropped out of BYU to get married and follow her husband to law school at the University of Washington. This is Dean Hughes' chance to deal with many women's issues as Diane's husband, Greg, wants her not to work, to look pretty, and be at his beck and call. Finally, Hans Stoltz, cousin to Gene, has been locked in a prison in East Germany for attempting to escape East Germany to America. Having become frustrated with the church and God prior to his attempted escape, he finds God in prison. His only possession is the Bible, and when that is taken away he relies on his remembrance of the scriptures to keep him sane. This series and the Children of the Promise series before it fortunately doesn't suffer from some of the most glaring problems of other Deseret Book "historical fiction" authors - such as presenting too many characters, and lacking earned conflict. While other series proudly proclaim to tell the history of the Latter-Day Saints, I found myself feeling that this series and the previous Hughes series much more closely approximates my experiences and feelings as a Latter-Day Saint. One possible explanation for this is the fact that the character Gene Thomas shares such a similar background to my own father. Both Gene and my father were born the same year, graduated in 1962 from East High School in Salt Lake City, played High School sports, attended the University of Utah, served German speaking missions, and were married in 1968. Fortunately, my father went to medical school instead of being sent to Vietnam, so the similarities are not perfect between Gene and my father. Still, although my father has different feelings and attitudes than I see in Gene, I often wonder how close an approximation Gene's attitudes are to perhaps one of my father's high school friends or classmates. Although the other characters don't match in such a personal way with my life, I find myself empathizing with their thoughts and feelings much more than in other LDS fiction I've read. Without question, because of these personal feelings I judge this fiction differently, both positively and negatively, than I do any other fiction, because I feel like I "own" this story in my own way. One of my frustrations with this book, and the rest of the series, is its guise of being marketed as "historical" fiction. Dean Hughes would likely be the first to tell you that he's not writing a history book, and I've never had occasion or reason to doubt his research. But, whether it be personal preference or a requirement by the publisher, extraneous "historical" facts end up in these books which have nothing to do with the plot. In previous books in this series it was a score of a high school football game that was accurate, or names and addresses of movie theaters or ice cream parlors in Salt Lake, or a church branch address in West Germany. In How Many Roads? most of the extraneous facts came in following Diane to the University of Washington. Not coincidently, Dean Hughes did his own graduate work at the University of Washington, and goes to great lengths to describe the campus, the trip to Vancouver Island, and the like. While the dialogue in these parts kept the plot moving, albeit slowly, these descriptions seem out of place when they are found nowhere else in the book. After reading 8 of these books, I'm still conflicted about whether it's the publisher who's insisting on these being "historical" fiction for marketing purposes, or whether it's Dean Hughes personal preference. Regardless, in my view the book would work better if these parts were taken out and the book was marketed as plain ol' "fiction," and not "historical" fiction. My other complaint with this book and the series in general is that each book, in particular How Many Roads?, cannot stand on its own. If you haven't read the first two books of the series, you won't understand the background of this book well enough to enjoy it. Furthermore, the book doesn't resolve in any way. The plot lines grow and develop, but it's obvious that the stories are far from being finished - and that is frustrating to a reader. It's like being handed chapters 13-22 in a 40 chapter book. In other words, the series, rather than being five books, is really one big book split into five parts. I can't help but wonder if this is also a marketing technique as well to maximize profits for the publisher. Those frustrations aside, I like Dean Hughes' characters, particularly those with faults like my own. I've found that this fiction, light though it may be, affects me more than most fiction because it's my story, my struggles, my feelings as a Latter-Day Saint. Dean Hughes doesn't tiptoe around the more difficult issues. I second what Jeff Needle said regarding the first book of this series "The Writing on the Wall," "this book will make you think. It will make you take a personal inventory of the essence of who you are; you may not be pleased with the result." I certainly would like to see more of that in LDS fiction. I would highly recommend this book, but . . . start at the beginning of the series. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 14:32:01 -0500 From: Linda Adams Subject: Re: [AML] Pleasantville--is it? At 09:58 PM 10/17/03, you wrote: >Especially interesting since in the book they sleep together and then=20 >the Whisperer basically commits suicide by making a stupid mistake --=20 >which he obviously knew better than to do -- and stepping in too close=20 >to a mad horse and getting killed. One case where the screenplay was=20 >infinitely better than the original source material (at least from a=20 >moral "standpoint"). Bravo Redford. > >Jongiorgi Enos And--as a source who read the book told me--wasn't she also pregnant with=20 the Whisperer's baby, when she went back to her husband, at the end of the=20 book? I couldn't stand the female lead in the movie. I hated her, I hated her=20 choices, I could not sympathize with her feelings the entire time. Not a speck. I couldn't understand Redford's characters' attraction to her. She=20 was a horrible mother. IMO. I kept wanting to smack her around. And (I=20 could be wrong) it seemed she didn't actually change by the end, either. So: I couldn't stand the movie, except that the horses were breathtaking. Linda [Adams] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 14:22:45 -0700 (PDT) From: "R.W. Rasband" Subject: RE: [AML] violent movies I was beginning to think I was alone in this reaction.=A0 "Seven"=A0is an astonishing, apocalyptic sermon about evil, and the dangers inherent in fighting it.=A0 Nietzsche's saying has become so familiar it has almost become a cliche: "If you stare long enough into the abyss, it begins to stare back into you."=A0 "Seven" is a hair-raising illustration of this and a profoundly moral movie despite its style and content.=A0 (So is "The Exorcist.") =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D R.W. Rasband Heber City, UT rrasband@yahoo.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 16:20:56 -0600 From: "J. Scott Bronson" Subject: Re: [AML] violence > >From: "Susan Malmrose" > >I know a lot of people say that Saving Private Ryan is worth seeing=20 > >because it shows the reality of war's gruesomeness and horror. My=20 > >reaction has always been that I don't need to see someone's guts=20 > >spilling out on a movie screen to understand that war is horrible. On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 20:39:30 -0700 "Clay Whipkey" writes: > I totally agree. I can't help but feel that some arguments to > support the value of using violence to teach lessons about > violence come from motivations to justify the secret=20 > enjoyment of watching it. Years ago at BYU I directed a play of my own writing for the directing class, commonly referred to as The Mask Club. (A class, bytheway, that offers way too few credits for the work involved -- direct two one-act plays in one semester over-seeing every aspect of the production without the benefit of a full production team. You lie awake at night working things out in your brain, you spend ours each day making arrangements for this that and the other thing. It consumes you, leaving no room for anything else. For three credits.) Lots of other theatre classes are required to see the Mask Club productions so everyone can sit around and talk about it afterwards. Very educational. So you've got an audience whose purpose is to FIND SOMETHING WRONG with the play. So, I step out on stage to discuss my production with the audience and one girl launches into an interrogation as to why I had my leading lady wander around the airport carrying a largish Raggedy Ann doll. She waved off all my explanations as to why that occurred. Finally I asked her why it was such a sticking point with her and she said, "Well, it's completely unbelievable." "Why?" I asked. "Because I would never do it." she said. To which I replied, "So? This ain't a play about you." And last night -- almost twenty years later -- as I surfed cable I spotted Linda Fiorentino being hounded by papparazi (sp?) in an airport terminal while carrying a rather largish teddy bear. Okay, so, Susan, you "don't need to see someone's guts spilling out on a movie screen to understand that war is horrible." Neither do I. If nothing else taught me that war is horrible, "Gallipolli" certainly did .. and without guts spilling. But, that is not what "Saving Private Ryan" taught me, nor was meant to teach me I believe. It goes a little deeper than that. The ovewhelming feeling that hit me as I watched that opening sequence was sheer amazement that there are men in this world who did -- and still do -- willingly subject themselves to this kind of situation because they believe in something bigger than themselves. A something that includes me. That those men would endure the torture of absolute fear and body-shredding violence on my behalf is as humbling a sensation as I have ever felt. As Tom Hanks said, we will never know what those men suffered, but in creating as truthful and definitive a document as it is possible to make the film-makers have at least also made it possible for us (some of us) to appreciate the quality of character that existed in those young men. It must be a universal inclination of humans to mistrust anyone who says, "I feel your pain" unless we're pretty darn sure that that person truly does know our pain. We despise condescension. "Give not me counsel, nor let no comforter delight mine ear but such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine." Leonato says that in "Much Ado About Nothing." And it explains precisely why we need a Redeemer. Why we need someone who has felt our pain. I can't imagine that the statement we will make at the judgement bar will vary much from that which occurs at the end of "Private Ryan." When the aged Ryan squats there in front of Captain Miller's cross and says, "I have done my best to live a good life. One that would earn what you all did for me. I hope it was good enough." he expresses a feeling that I think almost anyone can -- or will -- sympathize with. I imagine that "Saving Private Ryan" and "Gallipolli" and "Glory" and other films like that will hardly compare to what we will witness when the Lord says, "Watch this," then shows us the suffering in the garden and the agony on the cross. Go ahead, call me melodramatic. But, I fully expect that to happen. I want it to happen. I need to know that my gratitude to Him will not be condescending when the only words I will be able to say will be, "Thank you." > Maybe I'm being too judgmental. It certainly feels that way to me. > Why do people NEED to have those terrible things described and acted=20 > out for me in gruesome detail in order to _get_ that? Well, I don't suppose we need them acted out for YOU so WE will get it, but we may need them acted out for US so that we will get something else entirely: Not that murder is a bad thing, but that it happens to members of our Family, committed by other members of our Family. That there are people involved. To get us to understand that, as Jongiorgi put it, "I am more plugged into the weight of life and the intensity of human experience." Speaking only for myself, not attempting even to persuade, merely explaining why I don't believe it's justiable to unilaterally condemn any given work of art just because it doesn't work for "me," I crave vicarious experiences like "Saving Private Ryan" because I believe they prepare me emotionally for that moment when I will be compelled to finally comprehend the Atonement. J. Scott Bronson "People do not love better by reaching for perfection, they approach perfection by loving better." - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:37:12 -0600 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: [AML] Papa Married a Mormon - Review "Papa Married a Mormon" By John D. Fitzgerald 298 pages - Hardback Prentice Hall 1955 Out of print - can be purchased used at Amazon.com from $39.95 Book Review by Bill Willson This is a cross genre book about Mormondom, written by a Catholic. It is part memoir, part historical novel, part biography, and just a bit fiction, but the fictionalized parts blend so seamlessly with the historical parts that they are hard to discern. The book is written, for the most part in first person, by the author about his progenitors, his family, and himself. The setting is very believable, and the little town of Adenville, which is fictitious, and the adjoining towns of Enoch, which is a real town today, Silverload, and Castle Rock all seem very believable, and blend themselves quite well in to the ambience of the story. The time span is from the middle of the nineteenth century until the first decade of the twentieth century. The author discloses in the forward that he is writing the book as a fulfilment of a promise to his departed mother. She asked him to "write a story about all the little people who built the west, ... a true story about the Mormons as papa knew them, as I know them and as you know them." Fitzgerald used a treasure trove of old news paper clippings, letters, family photos, and journals he found before his mother's death, and rediscovered after the Second World War as a basis for his work. Fitzgerald's mother is Mormon girl and the daughter of one of the Mormon Pioneer founding fathers of Enoch. She was raised as a best friend of the Mormon Bishop's son, and has been sort of his childhood sweetheart. At any rate their parents had agreed they should marry when she turned eighteen. Of course this did not happen. John D Fitzgerald's father came west when his father's mother extracted a deathbed promise from him that he would find and look after his older wayward brother Will, who had left the family years before to go out west. The Fitzgerald's are Catholic and John D. and Will's younger brother became a Priest. All but one of the Fitzgerald children remained Catholic. John's oldest brother joined the Mormon Church, served a mission in China and graduated from the BYU academy. To me, the amazing message in this book is the incredible religious tolerance displayed by John D. Fitzgerald's mother and father, and how they so perfectly understood the principle of free agency. They both came from rigidly intolerant homes, with diverse backgrounds, and through their tolerance and understanding, punctuated by their abiding love for all humanity, they were able to draw their family and friends into their circle of love, and maintain family solidarity amongst diversity. As this very interesting and telling story unfolds we see the coming together and blending of religions. Protestant, Catholic, Gentile, and Jew into a tapestry of true love, with an underlying thread of a message that speaks of Christian love and acceptance of all, from agnostics, drunkards, dance hall girls, and gamblers, to saints and sinners alike. The story explores all the diversity of the human spirit, from bigotry and debauchery to self righteous condemnation and true Christian love of all God's children and true Christian fellowship. This book is a real page turner. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it to all. I suggest to those of tender feelings and emotions to have a box of tissue handy for the last few chapters. I was blubbering like a fool. But then again, I like "chick flicks." - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 21:13:32 -0600 From: Marvin Payne Subject: Re: [AML] Pictures in homes No compromise at all, but... Brian Kershisnik. Marvin Payne ____________________ Visit marvinpayne.com! "Come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift..." (from the last page of the Book of Mormon) - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 21:49:34 -0600 From: Clark L Draney Subject: Re: [AML] Papa Married a Mormon - Review This is the same John Fitzgerald who wrote the extremely funny and=20 insightful "Great Brain" books. They, too, take up the point of view of=20 Catholics living in Mormon country. They are written for 3-7 graders (I=20 think that's about right), but they are a delightful read at any age. Best, Clark D. [Draney] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 05:54:57 -0700 From: Jeff Needle Subject: Re: [AML] familiar pronouns and prayer She's not the only one. I've been able to pick up copies at DI from time=20 to time. It really was a good piece of writing! At 10:09 PM 10/20/2003, you wrote: >A sweet lady from the South in our ward addresses the Lord as Sir=20 >throughout her prayers. One Sunday she petitioned God to bring back=20 >the Relief Society Magazine, because she sorely missed having it in her >life. > >Nan McCulloch > > >-- >AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature=20 > - ---------------- Jeff Needle jeff.needle@general.com jeffneedle@tns.net - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #202 ******************************