Hello!

Over on the WHM side of things, I have a new novella out: 11 bookmarks

It is literary fiction with some absurdism and is a tone you all should find familiar, but it's also something new from me. I'd say if you like The Unseating of Dr. Smoot and/or "The Ward Organist" or other stories of mine in that vein of bemused, somewhat funny, somewhat insightful, somewhat absurd, then it's a good bet you'll enjoy 11 bookmarks.

It is available from the following stores:

• Print: Trade Paperback ($11)
• Ebook ($5.99): Kobo | Kindle | Nook (Barnes & Noble) | Apple Books

And then, speaking of The Unseating of Dr. Smoot: Michael Andrew Ellis has published a fascinating essay at how he came to better understand the novella after re-reading it. He writes: "I was unprepared at the time to read the novella as Rebecca herself hints that it ought to be read, as a work that resists closure both at a structural and a character level when it matters most."

Please do give it a look if you haven't. It's a fine piece of literary criticism, and I'd say that even if it weren't about something I wrote. And if you haven't picked that novella up yet, details on it are over on AMV.

Other than that: I'm working on stuff I either am not ready to talk about yet or shouldn't because it's going to go out on submission. I can share that I do have one piece out for submission right now and a few ideas in the hopper to get to once I finish the next WHM project.

Now on to the main section of the this month's newsletter: I have acquired a copy of Colloquium: Essays in Literature and Belief (2001, BYU) as part of my slow but ongoing project to look at how others have tried to define Mormon aesthetics (esp. in relation to literature). First up, is the entry by Mae Blanch, who is described as a retired BYU professor of English who specialized "in the novel and short story" which "sparked her interest in defining critical standards which LDS students could apply to literature" (529).

On Mae Blanch's "A Basis for Mormon Criticism: Can a Bad Man Write a Good Book?"

Upon encountering the title of Blanch's essay my first thought wasn't "of course!" or "yes, but" or even "why didn't she just say bad person," although I think all three of those are valid reactions, and I also had them after I got through my first one, which was: what kinds of good books can a bad man write?

Even if we accept the reductive adjectives of "bad" when applied to a writer and "good" when applied to a particular work, all sorts of bad (or at least not very good) people have written good literature. But are there limits or tendencies to the kinds of literature writers who have harmed other people (which, for now, is the easiest definition of "bad" I can come up with) are able to write?

I'm not sure.

Certainly, the reverse is true. Just because someone is good doesn't mean they will write a great short story or novel or poem. And while there might be specific tendencies some good people have for what they write, I'd hate to put limits on what's possible for them to write. At the same time, I do think there are hard limits on what insights bad people can access.

But let's see what Blanch has to say.

Blanch begins her essay by agreeing that there are so many examples of bad people writing good fiction that her initial question isn't the real question she'll be exploring in the essay (I don't love a bait and switch; on the other hand, it worked on me—I turned to this essay first). Instead she wants to know how they are able to do so.

She sets up the following chain of logic over the first two pages:

1. The author has "a moral vision of life, even if his or her own life does not conform to that vision" (447)
2. "the discrepancy between the authors' lives and the vision they have of what life should be" produces "the pain that is often the source of great literature" (447)
3. although that pain needs to lead to insight: "an earmark of greatness may well be the ability to perceive and record the truth rather than to justify one's own life" (448)

But I need to back up a bit.

One thing Blanch takes as a given is that "great literature portrays a moral universe" that contains within it eventual consequences for "the violation of morality" (447).

I largely agree with each of these elements of all of Blanch's understanding of good/great literature and how it is created, although I'm sure Blanch and I would disagree on the particulars, especially which works are deserving of the designation of good literature.

In particular, I bristle at the idea that pain is the driver of great literature. Instead, I believe that pain inhibits more than it drives when it comes to making art. And I believe that the driver actually isn't the pain, but rather the sincere quest to understand that pain and alienation, to understand why there is discrepancy between how we live and how we feel we should live and how others live and how society (or elements of society) has arranged itself and how we feel would be better ways to live. The expression of such dissatisfaction can get twisted and/or be built upon naive ideas about aesthetics or morality, even, perhaps, especially, if that naiveté grounds itself in a fascination with darkness. But at the same time: none of us, writer or not, really understand much of anything, especially at those times when we think we have things all figured out. And at the same time: all of us are capable of the occasional insight.

So far this set up by Blanch is interesting to me. Maybe a bit basic, but I respect that these are the questions she's asking, and sometimes you need to start with the basics, especially in Mormon aesthetics where, yes, there's a tradition of asking these questions, but a very slim one.

Things get a little shakier in the next section which is a standard, albeit somewhat restrained, rant on moral relativism and nihilism.

But we get back to firmer ground when Blanch begins to outline what a Mormon criticism should orient itself towards. Unsurprisingly, she invokes the thirteenth article of faith (listen, we all do it). However, she does so in a way that's a bit different than I've seen: "Faced with this dilemma [relativism], the need becomes critical for an LDS critical approach by which judgments that assert shared commitment to certain eternal truths can be made. The problem will be how to make that approach broad enough to include all that is 'virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy' (thirteenth article of faith) but specific enough to make judgments meaningful. Something that is praiseworthy is not always lovely, and something that is of good report is not always praiseworthy. Thus the criteria to be established must be flexible, but not formless, stable but not set in concrete" (449).

This is perceptive stuff by Blanch, not only on an abstract level, but also on where Mormon culture so often goes wrong. We nod to or argue about the broad but never get down to the specific. Or we are so all over the place or vague that we're formless or, in seeking for stability, we set things in concrete, we over-schematize.

I'm particularly struck by her insistence that we should be looking for works that are both praiseworthy and of good report. Those are squishy concepts, but she's spot on that these two adjectives provide a great starting point, leaving room for variety in both subject/theme/moral pov and the form those take (and with what art and craft) but insisting that both be present in a work. She also notes that "of good report" contains within it some of the opinions of the audience, of reception studies, although, imo, we should leave room for that audience to be very small. It does not need to be an appeal to populism.

Blanch then takes things a step further, reasoning that since Latter-day Saints worship Christ, they should be able to look to his attributes to find values with which to judge art. She specifically settles on "light, life, and love" (449).

I'm running out of space here so I won't attempt to detail her expansion on these three alliterative attributes. Instead, I will skip to where she sees them as being useful for criticism:

If light, life, and love become the basis for LDS literary criticism, do those criteria limit what is acceptable only to those works that portray a world in which these values dominate? That cannot be. If literature is truthful, it must frequently portray a world where truth is perjured, life denied, and love absent or perverted. But often showing what is, cries out for what ought to be. Suppressing the truth never resulted in making the world a better place; in fact, it works against necessary change. If literature shows us what has been, what is, and what ought to be, it must frequently show past and present evil to make what ought to be evident, and to demonstrate what demands action. It is not so much a matter of subject as it is of attitude (452).

This is an argument for humanism. Blanch and I would likely differ on whether or not post-modernism is against humanism (I don't think it ultimately is), but I hope we'd both agree that the main danger these days is that of the denial of humanism, which contemporary culture is rife with.

I'm also struck by the phrase "often showing what is, cries out for what ought to be." In a world where billions of dollars are spent on obscuring what is and mocking or marginalizing what ought to be (and I'm not just talking about LLMs here: this statement was true before they became widely available has been true since the rise of nationalism [and its attendant political propaganda], advertising, and PR), art, good art, is often the most effective and satisfying way to cut towards moral truth even if it doesn't do so perfectly.

If Blanch had stopped there, it would have been a solid entry in Mormon aesthetics. What makes it truly interesting is that she's willing to also apply her schema to specific works of art. Now, I'm a little disappointed that she chooses a film and a play for this. You're a retired professor of English! Where are the novels? But I suppose the film makes sense because it caused a local kerfuffle in Provo in the 1960s. It's Blow Up (1965) and due to some nudity and a party scene featuring drug use, some folks picketed it. Blanch defends the film because it "records truth, endorses a life based on concern for others and the acceptance of moral responsibility on what happens to them." And, in the end, it condemns its' main character albeit not in a way that is as straightforward as some folks might like.

In contrast, Blanch claims Edward Albee's play Three Tall Women, which contains no violence or nudity and is "insightful, witty," only offers a truth that is "a skillfully concealed stereotype—men are sexual predators and women their victims" (445); its' theme is "a moral emptiness" (446). She says the same of Schindler's List (which she approves of) in relation to A Clockwork Orange (which she sees as empty), although doesn't go into detail on them.

I have no opinions an any of these four works, none of which I've seen or am likely to view in the future, but I like that Blanch applies her critical scheme to works of art (and in some detail). I wish that there was a bit more to the criticism that showed how the approach can be used in relation to formal and specific aspects of works rather than focusing in on the endings and core theme. But at least she provides a couple of close readings of actual works of art. Often, essays on Mormon aesthetics don't actually get applied to any specific pieces of art in any detail or at all.

I also wish that Blanch had taken this idea and applied it to numerous works. So often the best test of a critical lens is fruitful versatility, but all I can find from a quick search is two other essays by her, neither of which appear to deal with aesthetics or criticism. If you know otherwise, please drop me a line!

Have a Happy Halloween!

See you in December!