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Rank: AML Member
Joined: 10/26/2007
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. About a year ago I read Miss Misery by Andy Greenwald. I knew from reading the bookflap that one of the characters was a girl from Salt Lake. Then, in the opening pages, that girl said this:Quote:"It felt like when I went to temple with my parents when I was still too little to start hating it and I believed whatever I heard there came directly from a higher power." So then I thought oh cool, a Salt Lake Jew. That is New and Interesting.
Dozens of pages later I learned that her parents intend a BYUcentric future for her and I realized that no, she's Mormon, just this Greenwald yahoo didn't even bother to do a simple google to see if he had his vocabulary usage straight.
Oh, I find that annoying.
I don't have anything against people writing Mormon characters, but I expect them to be Mormon. That's not too much to ask, it is?
Because I belong to this much-screwed-up religion, I may be extra sensitive to this. But whatever the reason, I am sensitive and I try hard not to make mistakes like suggesting Mormon kids "go to temple." For instance, in a project I was working on concurrent with my reading of [iMiss Misery[/i], I had a Nazarene character who mentions seeing her pastor/minister/preacher/whatever. I wasn't sure. But you can be sure I consulted some Nazarene webpages to find out what the heck that guy was called before anyone else read it. Fortunately, there were no scenes where the character got churchy, so my research ended there. But if I had, I would have made every effort to make my Nazarene readership feel like I had done my homework--that, in fact, I must be a Nazarene myself.
Not so Greenwald.
Now, I don't blame any fictionist for wanting to write about Mormons--we're a fascinating race. What other religion is assigned an entire state by the popular imagination? Not to mention those white-shirted missionaries, BYU Cougars, glowing temples and other mysterious and attractive curios that set us apart from Americana Proper.
But, being Mormon myself, I just can't take a fictionist who, thus enchanted, then proceeds to reveal an utter and astonishing ignorance of Mormonism.
At first it was a simple grammar issue; then it got out of hand.
See what you think of this scene:
Disenchanted Mormon girl's parents come home early from a meeting at the temple that was supposed to last until ten or eleven at night. Here's what they're wearing:Quote:High-top sneakers, legs like ornery treestumps, and then...Roger Bortch, recognizable from his billboard, standing impressively at the foot of the stairs, his waxy blond mane golden in the bright light. He was wearing a blue and black Sergio Tacchini tracksuit and had a wingspan like an eagle; his think, sunburned neck gave way to rolling shoulders and muscular arms.... Gleaming in his left ear was a tiny hoop earring that fell somewhere between midlife crisis and pirate. To his right stood Mrs. Bortch, a tiny skeleton of a woman with a judgmental nose and Ashleigh's apple cheeks. She had a loud clattery doorknob earrings of her own and wore a gray sweatshirt that said MOMS RULE! in plaid stitching. I repeat: They were coming from the temple.
Before I go on, I want to point out that while reading this book I tried very hard up to this point to accept the Mormon characters as Mormon. It's not hard to imagine that Utah harbors irreligious emo kids or parents who freak out over a daughter's innocuous if angsty poem. There was some silly stuff and wrong phrasing and so on, but a lot of it was dismissable because of the point-of-view the reader experiences it through. I very much doubt that people in SLC seriously claim the streets' widths are to accommodate Brother Brigham and his wives marching by side-by-side, but whatever. Also: a lot of the p-o-v's information came not from the raised-Mormon girl, but from a guidebook--which could very well be full of half-researched crap (ala Miss Misery).
Anyway, get what happens next: Daughter Ashleigh (believably Utah name) introduces our p-o-v as a BYU student. This is accepted even though he hasn't shaved in over a week. His age is explained away by being a grad student, fine, but the beard? Supposedly Roger Bortch is alumnus himself, or, rather, "a fellow BYU man." I myself went the occasional week without shaving while at BYU, but I wouldn't expect uber-religious, daughter-stifling Mormons not to notice if I showed up to represent the school in whiskers.
The Bortches then, get this, invite this nice young BYU grad student in for coffee.
Coffee!
Okay. Um. Huh.
Maybe....
No.
Okay, with a lot of effort I can explain away the earring/sweatshirt/temple thing and I could even imagine that these allegedly hyper-righteous people fuel their daughter's Dr. Pepper habit by keeping the pantry stocked, but coffee?!?!
Let's pretend yes.
But to then invite a fine upstanding BYU student in for a mug?!?!
It's too much.
Then the Bortches are appalled to hear our hero pretend to be in a grad program in creative writing at BYU (horrors!) and that he "did a mission" in New York City (double horrors!!!!).
I'm too tired to argue the first one--maybe earringed Jordanian hyper-righteous Mormons would be appalled to learn the Lord's University teaches creative writing; but to be shocked that there are missionaries in the Big Apple is too, too much. I take it Andy Greenwald hasn't heard that there is one of those mystical Mormon temples right there in Manhattan.
Sigh.........
I don't mind people writing about Mormons, I really don't. I even think it's good!
But for heaven's sake, if you're going to do it, Andy, at least try not to make yourself an idiot in the process.
Coffee?!?!?!
Do yourself a favor--before studying up on blood debt (snort) or Mark Twain's visit to Brigham Young, take a trip to mormon.org or look for an actual Mormon to read your MS on craigslist or something and figure out what a 21st century Mormon actually looks and talks like. It can't be that hard. For heaven's sake, there are 42,000 of them right in your hometown.postscript: In Andy's favor, I'm pretty sure he's been to Salt Lake. The drive through town seemed pretty real.
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Rank: AML Member
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One thing I noticed in Big Love, which is actually pretty good with its LDS references, is when the first wife mentioned something about a Temple Recommend, pronouncing it rec-o-MEND. Of course, this is the way the word is pronounced normally. But talking about Temple Recommends it seems we always say REC-o-mend. Is that just my experience? It’s an odd little cultural quirk. One more reason why I think it’s got to be pretty difficult to write about an experience as intricate as Mormonism without having experienced it.
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Great points. I get just as irritated when a writer will create a baseball player or something without having done sufficient research about baseball.
I really noticed this point when I saw Trapped By The Mormons recently. It's a classic anti-Mormon film, a silent film from about 1916, and one that might therefore be excused if they got things wrong. But in this case, they clearly had made no effort whatsoever to learn about Mormons. My favorite moment is this insane baptism ceremony, which involved moments of sprinkling AND immersion, though not full emersion. Very funny, of course, today, but it was a damaging film back in the day.
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I once found a single sentence that had at least four mistakes in it. I'll see if I can track it down again.
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Rank: AML Member
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Location: El Cerrito, California
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. Yeah, this is an issue that goes WAY beyond representing Mormons--and the cop-out reason why "Write what you know" is such good advice. Even when you do that, some people will still get on you for getting it wrong. I have to watch myself on the Mormon issue--I have a tendency to universalize my experience and declare others' wrong. Not good.
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We don't have HBO so I don't watch Big Love. But the mention of temple "recommend" was interesting. It's not uncommon for the same word, when used as a different part of speech, to stress a different syllable (think of con-'crete the adjective vs 'con-crete the noun). I was intrigued because in checking several hard copy and online dictionaries (isn't this what everyone does at 6:00 a.m.??), I found only one reference to the word recommend used as a noun, and that did not give a different pronunciation. I guess our lingo hasn't quite caught on - I wonder when we started calling that little slip of paper a recommend?
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Charlotte Willian wrote:We don't have HBO so I don't watch Big Love. But the mention of temple "recommend" was interesting. It's not uncommon for the same word, when used as a different part of speech, to stress a different syllable (think of con-'crete the adjective vs 'con-crete the noun). I was intrigued because in checking several hard copy and online dictionaries (isn't this what everyone does at 6:00 a.m.??), I found only one reference to the word recommend used as a noun, and that did not give a different pronunciation. I guess our lingo hasn't quite caught on - I wonder when we started calling that little slip of paper a recommend? It should really be "temple recommendation," shouldn't it? It's similar to how "invitation" has become "invite" (IN-vite) in recent years. I'd be curious to know when Mormons started calling it a "recommend," and what they were thinking. Was "recommend" as a noun EVER common usage?
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R.O. Despain wrote:I once found a single sentence that had at least four mistakes in it. I'll see if I can track it down again.
Kathy Hogan Trocheck, Every Crooked Nanny, p. 108. Whit Collier, a bona fide Mormon is speaking: "We talked about going up to Palmyra, New York, to the spot where Joseph Smith found the golden tablets. And of course she wanted to go back to Utah to be baptized a Saint there, in the Temple." At the time, I thought there were at least six places where a real Mormon would have said something different. 1) Palmyra, maybe. More likely Hill Cumorah. 2) spot. Well, hardly a spot. See supra. 3) found. Sounds like he was searching at random or something. He didn't find them. 4) tablets. Plates, always. Golden steno pad may be coming. 5) of course ... go back to Utah to be baptized... No, you can be baptized anywhere. 6) baptized a Saint. Baptized a member at most. 7) in the Temple. Hold it right there! Six solid mistakes and one improbability in two sentences of 38 words.
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Rank: AML Member
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. EricDSnider wrote:Charlotte Willian wrote:We don't have HBO so I don't watch Big Love. But the mention of temple "recommend" was interesting. It's not uncommon for the same word, when used as a different part of speech, to stress a different syllable (think of con-'crete the adjective vs 'con-crete the noun). I was intrigued because in checking several hard copy and online dictionaries (isn't this what everyone does at 6:00 a.m.??), I found only one reference to the word recommend used as a noun, and that did not give a different pronunciation. I guess our lingo hasn't quite caught on - I wonder when we started calling that little slip of paper a recommend? It should really be "temple recommendation," shouldn't it? It's similar to how "invitation" has become "invite" (IN-vite) in recent years. I'd be curious to know when Mormons started calling it a "recommend," and what they were thinking. Was "recommend" as a noun EVER common usage? Also: using proselyte as a verb is a mostly LDS thing, though I don't think entirely.
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