Sean Penn's "Into the Wild": a summary judgment.

"Into the Wild" was released last Friday. I watched the trailer for it the other day and really wanted to see it. The cinematography looks beautiful, the story is compelling, and they used a great Iron & Wine and Clexico collaboration (He Lays in the Reins) in the trailer. Because I decided not to see Into the Wild, I suppose you could say this is a review based on the trailer, rather than on the merits.



Into the Wild is one of my favorite books. I remember reading the original article, entitled, "Death of an Innocent" in Outside magazine back in 1993. Krakauer is a gripping writer, and the article combines gumshoe reporting and forensic discovery with the finesse of a novelist and the introspection of an essayist. And even without fine writing the story itself is engaging: authorities find a young man's decaying body in a sleeping bag in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness---eventually the body is identified as Chris McCandless, a kid from an affluent family in the elite Northeastern establishment, but how McCandless ended up in Alaska remains a mystery, so a writer collects the clues and slowly pieces together Chris' journey across the midwest, west, southwest, and up the coast to Alaska. But Krakauer made the story better with his persistent questioning: not just where? what? who? and how? but more importantly, why?

Krakauer's article was his big break. Soon he expanded the article, delved a little deeper into the introspection, developed it into a full-length book and published it as Into the Wild. Soon after, he published Eiger Dreams, a collection of wilderness essays/memoirs, and short journalistic pieces and then Into thin Air, another book based on an Outside article, (this one about the disastrous 1996 climbing season on Mt. Everest). Krakauer admits that his writing has become obsessed with extremism in one form or another. Most recently, he published, Under the Banner of Heaven, an exploration of the perils of religious extremism using fundamentalist Dan Lafferty as a case study.

And now Sean Penn has made Into the Wild a movie. On the one hand, who can blame him. It's a great adventure story and just begs for a gorgeously shot film to go along with it. But on the other hand, if this review is to be believed, Penn takes great liberties with the facts of McCandless' life to make Chris a one-dimensional tortured anti-establishment hero and excises the introspection and questioning that made Krakauer's study of McCandless great. If this is true, it's disappointing.

I have nothing against taking artistic liberties with the facts as a theoretical principle. Some of Shakespeare's greatest works aren't faithful to history the purport to portray. The Standing on the Promises series is a fantastic work of historical fiction. But these books take artistic liberties to fill negative space in the historical record, rather than rewrite history that is reliably set down. When history is scant, I have no problem with an author filling in the blanks. Too often, though, artistic liberties and "historical fiction" are merely excuses for a failure to write compelling history.

It's one thing to write ahistorical things about ancient English Kings like Lear and Hamlet, or to use the novelist's gift to flesh out the minimally recorded lives of slaves. But using artistic liberty as an excuse to malign the character of living people is egregious. According to the review at Slate, Penn crudely justifies McCandless' disowning his family by inventing out of whole cloth a childhood of abusive memories. In reality, Walt McCandless did not get drunk and beat his wife. Spousal abuse is not among his many faults. Chris cut off all contact with his family because he disapproved of the materialistic way they lived. Their New England elitism didn't jive with his Thoreauvian ethic and his Jack London aesthetic. Their complicity in the environmental and social exploitation of American capitalism offended him. As a result, his rock-hard integrity demanded that he have nothing to do with them.

Whether these are worthy ideals is one question; whether they justify disowning a beloved family is another. Krakauer's book is good because he takes on these questions (and others), grapples with them, and refuses to take the easy way out. My beef with Penn's movie is not that it is too positive, but that it reduces Chris McCandless to a one-dimensional stock hero. Chris was not just a hippie or an emo hero, and his life story should be more than a surfer movie sans surfing. His staunch ethic makes him more like firebrand John Brown than flowerchild Thoreau. And like John Brown, Chris McCandless' is a bundle of contradictions that should make us think about ourselves. It's unfortunate that Penn's hagiographic portrayal hasn't preserved this. I don't think I want to see Into the Wild after all.

The Book Revue: The Politics of American Religious Identy, by Kathleen Flake

Since it's been a few weeks since I finished it, I owe an installment to the Book Revue. Kathleen Flake's The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle is worth a read for anyone who has interest in Mormon history, the decline of the Protestant political establishment, or church-state issues in the U.S.

What you have to know about Kathleen Flake is that she is incredibly smart. She possesses not only a historian's ability to survey huge amounts of material, but also the analytical gift of distilling a clean, precise, conclusion. She combines these scholarly gifts with the faith and experience of living inside the Mormon church. As a result, her writing is simultaneously challenging and uplifting to faithful and outsiders alike. I was first introduced to her through her 1992 Essay "Supping with the Lord: a Liturgical Theology of the LDS Sacrament." Her thoughtful analysis of one of the core ordinances of Mormonism takes a look at the similarities and differences between the two prayers, and between this ordinance as compared to other Eucharistic rituals. The combination of close textual analysis and thoughtful faith is rare in a world where writing about religion too often devolves into criticisms or apologetics.

This book is no different. In it, Flake examines how the church went from being an isolated polygamous, theocratic sect holed up in the Rocky Mountains to being the integrated conservative, uber-American, ultra-patriotic, nuclear family centered church that it is today. The traditional narrative accepted in Mormon studies placed the crux of that transition at the moment of President Woodruff's manifesto.

But one major problem with the traditional narrative is that the manifesto was in many ways a non-event. The church was locked in a fight with the republican federal government, both sides committed to win, and the situation changed very little immediately after the manifesto. Though we take it seriously today, it wasn't always regarded as so binding. While "the church" didn't sanction or solemnize plural marriages after the manifesto, several apostles did, with knowledge (and some have argued, implicit approval) of the President of the Church. While the excerpts appended to the manifesto in the current printing of the scriptures uses the language of revelation and vision, The language of the manifesto itself presents itself not as binding, but as "advice," and grounds itself not in revelation, but in the fact that plural marriages are "against the law of the land." (Greg Smith's article gives a more comprehensive view of post-manifesto polygamy). There were enough Mormons still continuing to marry polygamously that President Joseph F. Smith issued what is sometimes called the "Second Manifesto" in 1904. The major difference from the 1890 manifesto is that it specifically threatened excommunication to solemnizers of plural marriages. The fact is that the 1890 manifesto was not the colossal moment that some historians have made it out to be.

Flake's book asserts that it was Reed Smoot's election to the Senate that precipitated the change associated with the Second Manifesto. She details how the Senate at the time was dominated by a powerful but weakening protestant establishment; not an organization, but the informal cooperation of individuals and groups with a shared understanding and agenda. The Smoot hearings were the clash between the (largely) republican protestant movement and the Mormon church. Bent on destroying the remaining "twin relic of barbarism," the republican party was not going to back down. However, this time the fight was political; it was fought in committee rooms rather than on the battlefield and in the courtroom and the jailhouse. The result was compromise and accommodation on both sides.

But most surprising to me, was the portrait that Flake paints of Joseph F. Smith. I came away from this book viewing President Smith not just as a prophet, but as a brilliant strategist who was forced to act as an intermediary between the hostile federal government and his own people. Flake explores how at the same time he committed the church to the eradication of polygamy, President Smith also began to place renewed emphasis on the First Vision to ensure that the church would not lose its uniqueness. With its commonwealth assimilated, its independence a thing of the past, and its most distinctive practices abolished, President Smith turned the church to its distinctive doctrines.

And one need not worry that Flake's book is damaging to Mormon faith. While I wouldn't make it part of the Sunday School curriculum, it tells a faithful, honest story. It must be remembered that Flake is a Latter-day Saint, which makes it clear that while the issues raised by this period of church history may challenge the understanding, they do not have to destroy or weaken faith. Recently, even Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve spoke favorably of this book, calling it "the best thing ever written on [the church's transition from isolation to assimilation]." On Joseph F. Smith's role in the transition, Elder Oaks says that Flake "wrote about that so movingly, and I’d never thought of it. That was something that was new to me, but it rang true." (Read the whole interview here.)

Bottom line: The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle is a great, well-researched, and thoughtful book. It ought to be required reading for anyone interested in studying Mormon history at the turn of the century.

The Book Revue: a dystopian reader

I just finished Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. It was a fantastic book. So engaging I could not put it down. 374 pages in about 3 days. Shades of 1984, shades of Brave New World, shades of The Time Machine, Frankenstein, and others. But not in a rip-off way, either. More like a tribute way. It's as if Atwood is at once recognizing the greatness of other authors and building on it, going beyond it, synthesizing and incorporating it into something new and her own.

I was first introduced to Margaret Atwood by my wife, who is the proud owner of a paperback copy of every Atwood novel. However, it wasn't until I my senior English seminar on Utopian and Dystopian literature that I read one of her books, The Handmaid's Tale. In that same course, we also read The Republic, Utopia, Gulliver's Travels, Herland, We, 1984, Brave New World, The Dispossessed, and I'm probably not remembering a few.

So what follows is my attempt at a few recommendations of dystopic literature:

1. 1984 is kind of like the granddaddy of the genre. It isn't the oldest or the biggest or the most complex, but it is probably the most read and the most influential. It is the most political, for sure, and perhaps the most enduringly relevant.

2. The Time Machine is not the most elegantly written piece of fiction out there, but it remains one of my favorites. It was truly inventive for Wells to take social stratification to its most frightening Darwinian conclusion.

3. Brave New World is a well-written work by a truly crazy man. It really makes you think. I wonder, though, how many of the politicos who cite it in their fear-mongering about stem cells have actually read it.

4. The Road is a recent novel by a man who customarily writes stories about cowboys and sunsets and dangerous mexican jails and bleak desolate country and what it means to be a man. It is a post-apocalyptic account of a man and his son (Abraham/Isaac and God/Christ comparisons are inevitable) trying to survive. It is probably the most gorgeous on my list in its use of language. The most poetic, the most lyrical. I actually cried.

5. Oryx and Crake is, as noted above, fantastic. I think it's better than Handmaid's Tale. At least, the fact that it is less in-your-face feminist makes it seem a bit more universal, and it explores the themes common to the genre more deeply than Handmaid's Tale.

6. A few selections of the Book of Mormon (The Book of Fourth Nephi and The Book of Ether), I think qualify as dystopian writing.

7. Some helpful background: it is almost impossible to read some of these pieces without an understanding of a few biblical stories: Eden, and Abraham and Issac are probably the two most critical. Sir Thomas More's Utopia is also helpful, as is The Republic, as well as some cursory knowledge of Marxism and Utilitarianism. Knowing Shakespeare makes everything better, and these books are no exception.

Any other thoughts? Have I missed any? Any that don't belong here?

The Book Revue: John Brown, Abolitionist

A few weeks ago I finished David S. Reynolds' biography of one of the oddest figures of American history, John Brown. I am by no means an expert on John Brown, so I'm probably not qualified to make a substantive judgment of the book. I will say this, however, it is engagingly written for the most part, and seems to reflect a wealth of background knowledge on the subject. However, my biggest criticism is that it is not as well referenced as it should be. Reynolds uses endnotes, not footnotes, which makes is hard to see the source for a particular fact or assertion. Even worse, some facts are not referenced at all, leaving the reader to wonder if they are mere conjecture or if the author simply forget to source them. Despite this flaw, the book is well-written and paints a vivid (albeit perhaps a little too positive) picture of its subject.

One of the book's major contributions is the picture it paints of violence in ante-bellum frontier America and the South. I mentioned this in an older post. When we decry contemporary acts of savagery, we hardly remember bleeding Kansas.

With a name as common-sounding as Joe Smith, John Brown is a bundle of paradox and contradiction. On the one hand, he was religious in the extreme. A strict calvinist of the strictest conservative puritan mold, he refused to receive guests on the Sabbath. On the other hand, he was extremely progressive in his attitudes on race. Brown claimed that he did nothing more than take the Bible seriously, but in a time when even abolitionists believed as a matter of scientific fact in white supremacy, Brown believed in absolute equality. Despite his conservative religious attitudes, he was not exclusionary. His closest followers and confidants included religious men as well as atheists. He did not question their beliefs, only their commitment to kill slavery. He refused to entertain guests on the Sabbath, but his most violent campaigns took place on Sunday.

Understanding religion is key to understanding John Brown. Perhaps it is impossible to comprehend a man who felt called of God if one has not had spiritual experiences oneself. Unlike most other abolitionists, Brown felt that abolition was a heavenly mandate, not just a social good. This is probably the source of his urgency. He hated complacent abolitionists who did nothing but talk almost as much as he hated slaveholders. But faith can be dangerous as well. With a heavenly mandate, Brown felt that any means were justified to end slavery. Killingunarmed men and boys in the middle of night and hacking off their limbs was no crime to Brown. Dostoyevsky's Ivan Karamazov said that if there is no God, then everything is permitted. John Brown seems to suggest the opposite: that with God, (to paraphrase Gabriel) nothing is impossible, even murder is justified by those who believe that it is the will of God. I don't think that a belief in God itself leads one to commit violence, but people use their belief to justify the worst atrocities. Perhaps one of the lessons of John Brown is that faith is a two-edged sword.

But even so, John Brown shouldn't be dismissed as nothing more than a violent fanatic. In many ways, he was the first to take seriously what has become enshrined as the creed of our nation, that legal distinctions based on race are anathema to our national goodness. And he was the first to actually expect that this country would live up to the challenge. In fact, Brown was unique among abolitionists because he believed that the constitution was good. Most abolitionists, turned off by the 3/5 compromise and the guarantee that the slave trade would continue, called the constitution a "covenant with Hell." Brown on the other hand, believed that the constiution was essentially good, and that these flaws should be excised through the amendment process.

I grew up thinking that John Brown was insane to think that his small band of abolitionists could end slavery with an attack on Harper's Ferry. In reality, this is a vast oversimplification of his plan. His plan was not to kill slavery with one blow, but to strike at Harper's Ferry, commandeer the U.S. arsenal there, and flee into the Appalachians where he and his men would at random times conduct night-time raids, freeing slaves and bringing them back to their mountain hideout. Eventually, their small military camp would become a substantial racially integrated community. As this community grew larger, terrorized southerners would see the inevitable end of slavery and would give in to political pressure to end the "peculiar institution." What's more, Brown had historical precedent in Haiti to believe that such a plan would work.

Reynolds' denoument is too literary and too long. After telling an engaging story of Brown's life and death, Reynolds then engages in a survey of literature and popular songs that mention Brown, and attempts to draw a conclusion from all this. While this activity yields some interesting insights and historical trivia, it drags. Despite this, it is a good book. If only for the presentation of ante-bellum American violence, this book is worth reading.

The Book Revue: Rough Stone Rolling

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Knopf, 2005) has been long awaited. Years ago, I read Bushman’s Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (1984, U of Ill. Press). It was fantastic. More thoroughly researched and more objectively and insightfully analyzed than most Joseph Smith bios, it was a great read.

So when RSR came out, I was excited to read it. School and finances delayed me a bit, but several months ago I received RSR as a gift and read it as quickly as 1st year law courses would allow.

Overall, it is great. As well researched as JSBM was, RSR begins with a biographical survey of Joseph Smith’s maternal and paternal ancestors and the cultural climate of New England at that time. It then moves through Joseph’s early life and continues with the founding of the church. The rest is, of course, history.

The overall theme of RSR is progressive development, or in very Mormon terms, line upon line. Sometimes we Mormons tend to think of the church and the priesthood as having sprung, Minvera-like, fully formed from Joseph’s revelatory head. In reality, Joseph himself learned the organization of the church and the priesthood one step at a time. Bushman looks at the different versions of the first vision as an expression of Joseph’s growing understanding of that experience and his growing confidence in his calling leading him to reveal more and more of what had happened to him. He also examines the ways in which the Book of Mormon itself contributed to Joseph’s view of himself as a prophet called of God rather than just another visionary preacher.

The challenge in writing about Joseph Smith is that he is such a divisive figure. Everyone has an opinion and everyone has an axe to grind, an agenda, or at least a bias. Bushman readily acknowledges that he views Joseph as an inspired prophet and regards the church and priesthood as authentic. But this does not prevent him from taking a close, critical look at the stories that have surrounded Joseph and using an astute historian’s eye to separate undocumented folklore from documented fact. For example, Bushman makes no effort to de-emphasize the fact that most of the Book of Mormon was likely translated not looking directly at the plates with the Urim and Thummim, but using a seerstone in a hat with the plates out of sight. This model can be challenging to those who have grown up with the seminary video version with the sheet hung between Joseph and Oliver, but it does emphasize that the translation was a revelatory experience. In addition, the seerstone version is actually more consistent with the Book of Mormon itself. (See Alma 37:23).

RSR is heavy on analysis and a bit lighter on facts. It is still well-sourced, and it won’t be incomprehensible to a novice, but it will be better if you already have some foundational knowledge of Joseph’s life. For a less analytic, more factual bio, Donna Hill’s Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (1977, Signature) is a great choice. Bushman puts emphasis on the cultural context of the events in Joseph’s life, but also seems to want to explore the aspects of Joseph’s character that transcend 19rh century America. The book would be incomplete without looking at these transcendental strands, but Bushman waxes philosophical, almost rhapsodical at times. It is a different, though no less valuable approach than Hill’s very journalistic style. I recommend it.

The Eats Sheet & The Book Revue: The Dinosaur Bar-B-Que

In this post, the Eats Sheet and the Book Revue join forces to review the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: the restaurant, the book, the legend.

The Legend
The original Dino BBQ was a road outfit, peddling their smoked meat wares at state fairs and biker gatherings. After 5 years on the road they opened the a restaurant in Syracuse, NY in 1988. At first just take-out, they expanded to include a bar and live blues before long. In 1998 the Rochester location opened in an old station of the defunct Lehigh Valley Railroad, overlooking the Genesee River. In 2004 the Dino opened its third restaurant, in Harlem.

The Restaurant (Rochester)
The first and most important thing you need to know about the Dinosaur is that the food is absolutely fantastic. Not surprisingly, barbeque stand-bys like ribs, smoked brisket, and pulled pork are the foundation of the menu, but Stage's years on the road took him all over the south, and the Dino's brand of 'que is a dusky blend of authentic influences from Texas to Memphis. In addition, there are strands of Asian, Cuban, and Creole influences laced throughout the menu. Because the Dino is a rib joint, you would be remiss to not try the ribs, but the combo plates and the BBQ samplers are a good way to get a wide taste of the menu.

The goodness doesn't stop with the main dishes, though. Part of the Dino's appeal is the sides menu. My three favorites are the fresh cut fries (always crisp, never limp), the Cuban Black Beans (a great accompaniment to pulled pork), and the Honey Hush Cornbread. The Dino also has Saranac Root Beer available on tap (it comes in pints) and a variety of bottled root beers (including Pirates' Keg). If you're looking for wings, though, don't come here. The BBQ chicken wings are good, but they are not the Buffalo Wings that you would find in an average upstate New York pizza joint. In addition to a rockin' menu, the Dino also has rockin' tunes. Several nights weekly the Rochester location hosts blues artists, some local, some national. The tunes are always good. Plan to spend about $15/person to really get a good experience, but you can get cheaper meals. Vegetarian options are available (smoked portobello burger), but I don't know why you would go here to eat vegetarian.

The Book
The great thing about the Dino cookbook is that it is not just a set of instructions to make a product. It is a book of principles that can be applied in practice to the craft and the art of fine bar-b-que food. Think of the recipes as canvases on which an artist can work. It includes important instructions on how get authentic smoker flavor out of a tiny kettle grill, how to avoid overcooking a piece of meat, and how to tell when a stake is done without piercing it with a thermometer and letting all the juices out.

The book also tells you how to develop a palette of basics from with to work your art. How to create spice rubs, sauces, and marinades. My favorite dishes out of the cookbook are the Oven Roasted Mojito Chicken, and the Cuban dish, Ropa Vieja. If you're looking for a quick meal, don't look to the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que cookbook. If you're willing to donate an afternoon or even a weekend to the creation of culinary art, this is a great place to start.

The book is available on the Dino's website, but it is cheaper if you get it from Amazon.

Opening The Book Revue: David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism

No, the Book Revue is not a burlesque for literary types, it is We might be windmills' recurring review of books.

I got David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (DOM) for Christmas. Greg Prince, the principal author, is president and director of a biotech company in the D.C. area. He has also written two books about the priesthood: Having Authority: The Origins and Development of Priesthood During the Ministry of Joseph Smith (1993), and Power from on High: The Development of the Mormon Priesthood (1995). He is an active Mormon.

The most distinctive feature of DOM is that unlike most biographies, it is organized topically rather than by chronology. This allows a quick survey of a topic, and would be particularly useful for research.

Predictably, the chapter I was drawn to most quickly was the one on the development of President McKay's attitudes and opinions on civil rights and the church's institutional ban on the ordination of black members to the priesthood. DOM doesn't add anything earth-shatteringly new, but it does trace President McKay's somewhat ambivalent attitudes on race throughout his life, developing from his statement as a young missionary that he "doesn't care for" blacks, to the point that he was repeatedly struggling in prayer, wrestling with the Lord to get a revelation that would allow ordination of blacks. Prince depicts President McKay's worldwide tours as a the impetus for this development.

Less predictably, the chapters on church correlation and church education were also interesting. Likewise Prince's review of interfaith relations. One of the most remarkable moments in the book is where President McKay, visiting an Episcopal bishop with whom he had developed a friendship, accepts a blessing by the laying on of hands on commemoration of his birthday. Considering the LDS doctrinal stance on priesthood and authority, and considering President McKay's office within that priesthood, accepting such a blessing in an indication of profound humility both on a personal and an institutional level.

But perhaps the most interesting insight to take away from this book is the picture it paints of the ecclesiastical tug and pull within the General Authorities and within the church at large. This picture may be slightly exaggerated by the fact that President McKay's administration covered a time of great social and political upheaval in general. The competing influences of Hugh B. Brown and Ezra Taft Benson, the tug and pull between the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, and the influence on President McKay of those not in the official ecclesiastical structure, such as Ernest Wilkinson all show that there is more to church administration than is always apparent. Understanding this sheds light on President Packer's statement that the brethren have never been more united.

If you're looking for something a bit more sensational or scandalous, Michael Quinn's articles will sate that appetite. But for something a bit more reserved in the assertions it makes, yet an open examination, I recommend the book.

An interview with Greg Prince
A review of DOM over at DMI