D a l l a s R o b b i n s

What to read something disturbingly frightening for Halloween?

Everyone loves Peter Pan.  It’s a perennial childhood favorite, in books, plays, musicals, songs, art, films, the list could go on.  The recent film Finding Neverland in which J.M Barrie, Peter Pan’s creator, is played with the romantic charm of Johnny Depp, leaves the audience with a story of hope, imagination, and tenderness.  Mr. Barrie must have been such a wonderful person, and George Davies, the boy who inspired Peter Pan, what a plum lucky kid he must have been.

Awhile back I was browsing in the a local book store and came across Neverland: J. M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan by Piers Dungeon.  After reading just the first few pages, I was gripped by a story I was not aware of.  Not enough cash on me at the moment, I went to the library to pick up a copy.  I hate to parrot a cliché, but I literarily could not put this book down, until . . .  well I’ll get to that later.  But here is the scope of the book,

 From Michael Dirda at the Washington Post:

There might be scarier books this Halloween season, but it's unlikely that any will be as luridly creepy as "Neverland." Even if you already know a little about the sinister background of J.M. Barrie's classic play, "Peter Pan," you will be in for a shock. In these pages Piers Dudgeon presents a multi-generational history of psychological domination and submission, unnatural family relations, predatory abuse and suicide. He also connects three great works of the popular imagination: George du Maurier's late-19th-century bestseller "Trilby" -- the novel in which the evil Svengali, through hypnosis, transforms a beautiful tone-deaf girl into a singing sensation but in the process destroys her soul; J.M. Barrie's death-haunted "Peter Pan," once titled "The Boy Who Hated Mothers"; and Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance about spiritual possession, "Rebecca."

This book delves into the family histories of several people, exploring the fateful moments, deliberate manipulations, and pernicious abuse that occurred over decades, in which these literary creations were born from.  Even D.H. Lawrence once said after the passing of one Sylvia’s boys Michael, "J.M. Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves. They die."  And I thought Lewis Carroll was a little creepy – he apparently can’t hold a stick to J.M. Barrie.

And it is not an easy read.  After reading for a couple days and getting to the midway point to the book, it had a dark disturbing effect on me.  I didn’t sleep well.  I would become slightly nauseous thinking about it during the day.  I think I even had a nightmare.  It was simply a grisly reading experience.  So after about halfway through, I had to force myself to stop.  I may one day go back and finish it, but at that moment I just couldn’t go on.  It seemed like a tragedy without any possible catharsis.  (The only other time I had to stop reading a book due to sleepless nights and disturbing dreams is Whitley Strieber's Communion, but that's another story for next Halloween.)

And while Dungeon’s exploration probably reveals more truth than not, it is a little on the sensationalist side.  Since I am not an expert in the area of Edwardian children's literature and literary scene, I'm unsure which historical arguments are tenuous and which are more grounded.  The book has been criticised for being too high on emotion and low on some particular details.  But even if half of what is revealed in this book is accurate, it’s tragedy enough.  

Regardless, I highly recommend this book.  It reveals very interesting aspects of later Victorian and early Edwardian culture and customs.  It gave me a deeper respect of Daphne duMaurier as a writer and turned me on to her short story collection, Don’t Look Now.  But most importantly it reveals a story that needs to be told.  Hopefully another writer in the future will expand on Dungeon’s good work, correcting his mishpas, while having a more academic approach.  Even so, it couldn’t be no less disturbing a story than before, and is one helluva frightening read for Halloween.  As one critic has summarized, "I defy you not to be captivated."

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb

In the latest Sunstone, a special comics-themed issue, I have contributed a review of R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis.  An excerpt::

With his singular artistic vision, Crumb, godfather of the “underground comix” movement during the late-60s and 70s, has inspired literally thousands of comic artists.  Having such characters as Mr. Natural, Devil Girl, Felix the Cat, and Joe Blow, his comic stories didn’t simply push the boundaries of good taste, they ignored them.  Many of his stories are filled with pornographic perversities, earthy obsessions, racial stereotypes, social satire, or just plain indecent fun where censorship is the only offense. With such a long history of unscrupulous sequential art, Crumb’s turn to Genesis may seem odd.  But in the introduction, Crumb shares what attracted his drawing pen to the first book of Moses,

“…I, ironically, do not believe the Bible is “the word of God.”  I believe it is the words of men. It is, nonetheless, a powerful text with layers of meaning that reach deep into our collective consciousness, our historical consciousness, if you will.  It seems indeed to be an inspired work, but I believe that its power derives from its having been a collective endeavor that evolved and condensed over many generations…”

One of Crumb’s primary sources on Genesis, Robert Alter, provides additional reasons for the irreligious to take the book seriously,

 “Nowhere else in ancient literature have the quirkiness and unpredictability of individual character[s?] and the frictions and tensions of family life--sibling rivalry, the jealousy of co-wives, the extravagance of parental favoritism--been registered with such subtlety and insight.”

To read the full review pick up an issue of Sunstone today.  There's lots of good stuff in this one.

Re-Creating the Bible

 
In the latest issue of Dialogue, I have a review of The FOB Bible.  From the intro:

Lately the Bible has been getting a bum rap. Christopher Hitchen's calls it a “nightmare,” and blames it for much of humanity’s suffering - everything from sexism to genocide.  At the same time, literalist approachs to the Bible has produced narrow theology and tendecious unscientific speculation.  With these sorts of extremes touted by reductionist pundits and preachers, people are left with a false dichotomy of Biblical proportions.  Historian of religion Karen Armstrong reminds contemporary readers that, “…many modern assumptions about the Bible are incorrect.  The Bible did not encourage slavish conformity…From the first, the Biblical authors contradicted each other and their conflicting visions were all included by the editors in the final text.”

Pick up a copy to read the full review.

The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine by Gary Topping: City Weekly

The history of a cathedral is not just about another nice building, but also about the struggles, triumphs, and personal histories of a people. Gary Topping, professor of history at SLCC and archivist for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Utah, chronicles in his new book The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, the first 100 years of that magnificent building and the stories and voices of Utah Catholics.

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams: City Weekly

Living in Utah, you’ve heard it before: old creepy guy marries prepubescent virgin on polygamous compound. When explored in fiction, such stories can be as over-baked as last Sunday’s casserole. But Carol Lynch Williams does the improbable in her latest novel The Chosen One. She takes a far-too-common headline and creates a brave, uncommon voice in the character of 13-year-old Kyra.

George D. Smith's Nauvoo Polygamy

With an endless stream of books on polygamy and its discontents, do we really need another one? If the answer includes mention of Nauvoo Polygamy: "… but we called it celestial marriage" by George Smith, it would be a definitive yes. Ten years in the making, Nauvoo Polygamy traces the origins and establishment of Joseph Smith's vision of "spiritual wives" before it ever stepped foot in the State of Deseret. The book should dispel forever the common misperception that Joseph pined after only one wife and that polygamy was Brigham's idea while crossing the plains.

David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife

David Ebershoff’s moving and humorous story The 19th Wife explores the unlikely lives of two remarkable characters: Jordan Scott, a 21st-century “lost boy” and hardscrabble gay man, who travels from Los Angeles back to the site of his polygamous upbringing to help absolve his mother of the murder of his father; and Ann Eliza Winters, the novel’s namesake, who divorced Brigham Young and lectured against polygamy across 19th-century America.

Massacre at Mountain Meadows

The first sentence of the book Massacre at Mountain Meadows sums it up perfectly.

"On September 11, 1857, Mormon settlers in southern Utah used a false flag of truce to lull a group of California-bound emigrants from their circled wagons and then slaughtered them.  When the killing was over, more than one hundred butchered bodies lay strewn across a half-mile stretch of an upland meadow.  Most of the victims were women and children."

The Mormon Church on Trial

After Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race, many people gave a sigh of relief that we would not have to possibly endure years of Mormon jokes delivered on late night television. But a century earlier, Reed Smoot—an LDS Apostle who was elected to the U.S. Senate—caused an even greater media controversy.

Paul Toscano's The Sacrament of Doubt

In August of 1993, I stood in a conference room of a local Salt Lake City hotel listening to a passionate and angry speech by a local bankruptcy lawyer and family man—Paul James Toscano—criticizing the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for an idolatrous overemphasis on Heavenly Father at the expense of the grace of Jesus Christ. Toscano said such an imbalance leads to an abuse of power in the LDS hierarchy, a false conception of salvation and a misguided view of sexuality. In anticipation for the inevitable backlash, he declared, “We must not fear excommunication.” I thought to myself, “This man is packing some serious chutzpah.”
Just one month later, Toscano was sitting in his own “court of love” for that speech he gave, facing 15 of his local priesthood leaders. And by late afternoon on Sept. 19, he was excommunicated for apostasy.