The Future of the "Mormon Novel"

Nephi Anderson forged the path of the Mormon Novel with Added Upon. While the work was revolutionary in it's own right, it soon gave way to works of more palpable aesthetic and further creativity such as Mountains Between Us and Will Wonders Never Cease.

I certainly hope the pioneering will not end with these works. Instead, I hope we will continue to improving and expanding the tradition, particularly in the following areas:

Mormon-inspired National Market Novels:

Should LDS literature only be for LDS people? 

Maybe not.

Can people outside our culture still appreciate and understand the experiences and feelings of Mormons? 

I think yes. Mormons have a lot to offer. 

I appreciated, in words of Luisa Perkins, novels that are "profoundly LDS, but not overtly LDS." Since authors in general are (obviously) inspired by what they personally see and experience, it makes perfect sense for LDS authors take the peculiar aspects of their rebellion, lives, and cultures ro inspire novels. Orson Scott Card used our LDS heritage to inspire Seventh Son. Our beliefs in Joseph Smith and restoration are intriguing and spectacular--what else goes in a novel-writing formula?
Going along the same vein, Luisa Perkins explored the possibilities tied with our beliefs in body and spirits and took creative libertiesto complicate and push ideas of spirit and body further. Perkins published her novel with a LDS Publishing company, but like Card, she wrote a Mormon-inspired story that didn't require a Mormon reader.

Mormon Characters for General Audiences
Even better, I recently read LDS author Emily Wing Smith's Back When You Were Easier to Love published by Penguin Group. This book feature an LDS girl, struggling to fit in with Mormon culture in Utah, but it was written to a wider audience (as obvious by the publisher). This book was more masterfully written than many of the other Mormon novels I've read this semester, and I have no doubt a non-LDS reader would enjoy it just as much as an LDS one.

Along the same lines, A.E. Cannon wrote a successful historical fiction novel featuring a newly-converted LDS girl traveling from England to Utah to join the saints. Though I've yet to read it, I know the novel focuses her experiences on her voyage, caring for a baby who's mother died on board. Doesn't that sound appealing to more audiences than the LDS one? I'd hope for more of this kind of novel. If there's books about Jews and Catholics and Muslims enjoyed by people of all faiths, why not Mormons too?

National Market Worthy Novels for LDS Audiences:
Now, it does make sense that some explorations would be bogged down with Mormon culture explanations and are therefore best written for a specifically LDS audience. I don't think there's anything wrong with this genre, and it some cases it might be prefered. However, I can't stress enough that wish the stylistic crafting will continue to reach higher standards. As someone interested in publishing YA, I've taken classes severally creative writing classes from nationally published authors and read as much as I can to become a better YA writer.

Of course, I've still got a long way to go (hoping to find an agent for my first novel by December), but even with my small experience, I can recognize the major writing flaws in many of the books we have read (see my Jenny Proctor post for more specifics). While I liked each book, I couldn't fully enjoy the majority of them because of the rookie mistakes that I've trained to see and correct.And even though other people not as interesting in publishing may not be able to name the problems coming up in these novels, they still affect the how they feel about the novel.

It's not that these authors are bad writers, but in my maybe-not-humble-enough opinion, they are not ready to publish. They need to hone their craft further: mastering show don't tell, developing character, trimming wordiness, correcting unnatural dialogue, etc.

Why wouldn't we want future Mormon authors can write to skill level of nationally-published authors?

Truth, Beauty, and The Good

This semester I have spent a lot of time learning about the curriculum of the Truth, Beauty, and The Good, in relation to literature, religious pursuit, and life in general. Truth is also known as the meaningful life and primarily deals with epistemology or how we know what we think we know. Beauty, which is the rich life and stands out to us in form and aesthetics, and can act as an access point to Truth. Both of these correlate with The Good, which is known as the life of authentic happiness and is primarily seen through ethics. When combined, Truth, Beauty, and The Good for our ontology, or who we are and what it means for us to be and not just exist. 

The reason I give you this quick introduction to Truth, Beauty, and The Good is to better articulate what I believe is the authentic and innate connection between religion and literature. 

One of the first concepts that struck me while studying Mormon literature, was that in the early stages of LDS Literature, specifically Added Upon, the work and author seemed to be more concerned about portraying Truth than they were interested in portraying Beauty. Although I think this tactic accurately accomplishes its goal (yes, I can definitely see Truth in the book) it made it difficult for me to want to read the book because it was not first beautiful. This example highlights on of the main differences but also similarities between literature and religion. It seems to me, that in general, religion is most often primarily worried about Truth and The Good. Wishing for its devotees to live ethically and understand why they believe what they believe, is religions primary goal. On the whole, this approach works. It gives its followers a sense of the meaningful life of authentic happiness; at least, that is what I have felt from my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Similarly, literature also deals with Truth, Beauty, and The Good. But, its priorities are slightly different. Usually primarily focused on Beauty, literature uses Beauty, via aesthetics and form, to enlighten us to principles of Truth and The Good. All good literature leaves me feeling expanded in regards to questions about what I know and how I think I know it and what I believe to be ethical. In this way, literature often accomplishes all three aspects (Truth, Beauty, and The Good), whereas, religion often goes straight to the heart of the matter of Truth and The Good, hoping that it appears beautiful to the members. 

Both religion and literature seem to want to enhance our lives, although they often go about that goal in different ways. The only time that their different tactics present a problem, though, is when religion and literature try to join forces while still tugging their own directions.   

A perfect example of this tug-of-war is Mormonism and its efforts to create inherently religious literature. In many of the books we read this semester, I found myself always coming back to the same problem. The lessons and experiences of the book could be so impactful if they were portrayed with Beauty instead of just Truth. Religion doesn't necessarily need to present its information beautifully because easily-comprehended information ensures that everyone understands the doctrines taught. But literature, in order to be effective, must be beautiful. Obviously Beauty can be manifested in a number of ways. This doesn't require a prescribed style, but rather the qualities that will strike the reader because of the inevitability of what is written. Literature is less forceful than religion. The beauty of literature is that it embeds Truth and The Good subtly; it takes external reality and filters it through the internal workings of the human mind and soul. This is beautiful. Because of this Beauty becomes the access point to infinite amounts of Truth and The Good. Because literature is subtle, we can discover the truths that affect us, not just the truths that are prescribed and explained. 

Mormonism has a great potential to create literature that embeds immense possibilities for Truth and The Good. But in order to succeed, Mormon literature must not ignore Beauty. We must be prioritize Beauty and then, without doubt, the Truth, The Good, and the authentic happiness in our meaningful lives will be embedded into the pages of what we write. Others will find it through Beauty, and they will believe in the treasure they found.   

The Evolution of the Mormon Novel

Since the early beginnings of the LDS Church, Mormon literature has come a long way. I’m sure that the early members of the Church never expected to see such a huge growth in Mormon literature. In the beginning, it seems that members of the Church wanted to advocate Mormon theology. Novels such as Nephi Anderson’s “Added Upon” were written to explain Mormon doctrine in a new way. Anderson and other early Mormon authors wrote with the larger intent to instruct rather than to simply entertain.

As the years passed though, LDS authors began to realize that their audience wasn’t necessarily looking for another instructional story. Although religious literature can be very beneficial to society, that is only one genre of literature. Many people are looking for good, well-written literature, not just didactic tales but entertaining stories that they can talk about. Mormon authors can greatly enhance any genre by adding good, clean stories that provide more than just an explanation of Mormon doctrine.

There seems to be a difference however between Mormon literature and literature written by Mormons. Mormon literature seems to encompass literature that only members of the Church would come across and read. Stories such as Douglas Thayer’s or Jenny Proctor’s seem to fall into this category. The writing of Mormon literature itself has greatly improved over the years, but there seems to still be a disconnect between author and a wider audience. On the other hand, literature written by Mormons, which is literature not explicitly connected to the LDS faith, has had great success in recent years. Orson Scott Card, Stephanie Meyer, and Obert Skye, to name only a few, have all found a wide readership outside of the Mormon world.

really, really good at literature.

Literature is religious by virtue of how it is approached by those who, simply put, are really, really good at it. We do not start out understanding the complexities of Oedipus or the subtleties of Hamlet. Nor do we start out understanding the eternities or what the Atonement of Christ truly is. But once we get to the point of being experienced in looking at literature and looking at religion, then we can better understand it and see deeper meanings than we ever could have if we would have stayed reading Go, Dog, Go or just watching bible videos.

To begin this comparison, we can look at how we as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints begin to be ‘religious’. We start in nursery, being more or less babysat by people in our ward. They teach us lessons of Christ that

The Sublime Spirituality of Literature

While writing to her eight-year correspondent T.W. Higginson, Emily Dickinson wrote "If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?

Recently, I have extensively studied eighteenth-century aesthetic theory. Theorists such as Edmund Burke and Joseph Addison explored multiple aesthetic concepts such as beauty, sublime, taste, imagination among others. Specifically analyzing the sublime, Joseph Addison argued that a sublime experience was a type of elevation, heightening or intensification. Shawn Irlam describes the sublime as an "encounter with infinity or what mimics it; that which exceeds the capacities of the senses, massive or minute" (Irlam 515). As I studied the descriptions of sublime encounters of poets and theorists, I realized that this concept is not new to me.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Growing up as a Latter-Day Saint, I am quite familiar with the belief that one can be connected with "the infinite" or God, in more religious terms. I have had these moments of elevation as I attempt to grasp something larger and grander than myself. As I think of eternity or the Plan of Salvation, my mind can barely comprehend the meaning. Enlightenment theorists described such experiences as sublime; I describe them as a witness from God. To be honest, I don't find my description and the theorists description much different. 

The Religion of Literature

This weekend I've been in Cincinnati with Teach for America. On Thursday, I went with one of the current TFA teachers to visit his fourth grade class, observe his teaching technique, and teach a math lesson to his kids. During the lesson, I noticed that while many of the students sped through the math problems in their worksheets, they were uniformly stumped when they reached the word problems, either flinging their hands in the air for me to help them, or sitting back in their chairs, arms crossed, defeated. This was strange, I thought, since the word problems were just like the math problems before them—the only difference was that they used words instead of numbers.

          “Are the kids big readers?” I asked Nick later. Most of them seemed to like it, he said. They even read Harry Potter together as a class. “But to be honest,” he said, “I hate reading. I can’t remember the last time I read a book for myself.”

          This didn’t faze me; I’ve heard the same thing from many people in my generation, and from many in the generation before mine. Movies and television are more popular in our day, and I don’t condemn anyone for not enjoying literature, because that would be like if someone condemned me for not liking peanut butter. Moreover, reading is not easy. It demands energy; you have to sit still, usually without distraction, and put millions of letters into your eyes, and somehow get your brain to process them into words, and then into an aesthetic experience. Really good reading requires reading practice—every day—and if you don’t like the experience, it can be hard to find the motivation to have that practice. Word problems are harder than number problems if you have never read a book.

          Reading is hard, yes, and reading well is harder. Millions of Americans are literate, and I would bet that a smaller number of millions honestly read for fun. They read books that give them stories they want, with the excitement that they want, in language that they expect. But if you want to read for wisdom—the truth of the ages passed down by the conscious—that requires work. And more than work, it requires humility. You have to put yourself aside; you have to ignore your own thoughts and feelings and seriously consider the ideas of another. You have to have discipline, you have to have reverence, you have to have meditation, you have to have solitude.

          Such is the religion of literature. And such is so much religion—Hinduism, Christianity, Mormonism, Judaism. This is the religion of selflessness: put yourself last. Do difficult things. Ponder wisdom continually. Learn to love others.

Seeking the Best Books

What is religious about literature? Obviously some literature is overtly about religious belief or experience. But is there anything inherent to literature that is also inherent to religion? Does Mormonism aid us in seeing this dimension to literature?

Good literature is more than story telling. A friend of mine once approached me about my choice to study English during my undergraduate studies. Perplexed, he asked, “Why would I read a book when all they do is teach you about how to interact with people? I would rather just go to the source and spend my time building relationships than indulging in fantasy worlds and imaginary people.” Although I fundamentally disagree with my friend, I couldn’t find the words to explain why. The question had a root that perplexed me. What is the true value of literature? Are there elements of literature that build something inside of us like nothing else can? And, finally, is there something spiritual about even secular literature?

Some elements of literature are inherent to religion as well. Socrates once stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” This principle is consistent within all great literature and theology. Speaking about literature, CS Lewis once said, “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.” A good book amplifies our understanding of the world and ourselves instead of merely portraying it. If the latter were the case, my friend would have been right, and living and interacting with others would be enough for us to live a fulfilling, meaningful life. But great literature makes us seek truth in places that unreachable without it. The scriptures likewise admonish us, stating, “And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith.” Both great books and the scriptures look beyond the surface of life, to the very marrow of our existence. True happiness is not found in diversions, hobbies, or activities. It is found in true principles that are consistent through all faiths and beliefs.

In this sense, literature penetrates to the core of human existence, even unintentionally at times. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I have often found truths reflected in the secular literature I have studied that amplify and sharpen my understanding of a doctrine or belief. I believe that the Light of Christ shines through all great literature, relating true principles to people who may even claim to not believe in Christ. There are inherent similarities between the purpose of literature and the purpose of religious introspection. But Mormonism adds to the literary experience by providing a scope for truth to be filtered through. Instead of accepting every possible view at face value, Mormonism has helped me to know which ideas to explore further and which to abandon.

But truth is truth no matter the source. And for the exploring minds of the church, that is good news.

Final Thoughts on Sharing and Our Mormon Project

I shared this email with my dad via email in a PDF format. My parents’ knew about this relationship and they watched the ups and downs for about a year before they didn’t want to hear about it anymore. It got to the point where my mom wouldn’t talk to me and I didn’t want to talk to my dad because he was very negative. I recognize now that their behavior occurred because they felt helpless and didn’t know how to help me; they also felt my behavior was aimed at them as a way to hurt them (which it wasn’t). I felt hurt that they weren’t there for me when I needed them most and they made the experience about them, but when I decided to kick him out of my life they came right back into my life and were very supportive.

Sending him the essay felt like opening that wound a little bit because it brought out the sadness he and my mom experienced.  But I hadn’t told him about the dream so that clarified things for him and we were able to talk about it through email and then more in depth when I got home. My favorite quote from him about the situation was this: “It probably goes to show how blinded in bad relationships people can become; as perplexing as it is, the loving explanation of one or both parents sometimes don't shed light on the situation for the person involved - even creating resentment which is of course, exactly not what is needed.”