Back in 2020 Mojeaux serialized her short story “Allow Me to Introduce Myself” for the benefit of the good participants of this forum. It was so good that even I logged in to exclaim its excellence. Lately I’d been hankering to read it again but instead of locating the old articles I coughed up a few bucks and bought an e-copy of the anthology in which the story first appeared.
I’m glad I did. Here is my review.
“Monsters and Mormons” is a lengthy but fun read. I don’t think anyone here would have any difficulty with it but it’s not a book for everyone. Not all people enjoy fiction, much less Science Fiction and Fantasy, and I think some people would find the necessary pervasiveness of Mormon culture and behavior off-putting.
The Introduction states that the book is an attempt to reclaim the narrative of Mormon literature which has mostly been defined by the religion’s enemies. The stories run a gamut from SF&F, to poems, to historical fiction, to graphic novels, to contemporary drama. Most are straight-forward adventures with good triumphing over evil. I found a few to be disturbing.
But the Mormon slant gives the book a refreshing originality and there’s a fair amount of humor. After 30 stories a person not familiar with the tenets of Mormon faith might fancifully conclude that:
- Lime green jello is the True Body of Christ.
- The state of being unmarried is akin to an illness and the only way to cure it is a comprehensive series of programs to encourage singles to socialize.
- God created the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an army to protect members of more primitive religions from the Depredations of Evil.
I honestly think Mojeaux’s story is the best of the lot. One of the intriguing things about it is that it’s clearly a snapshot of something much bigger. It’s like reading The Hobbit for the first time and stopping after the Dwarves all arrive at Bag End but before Gandalf shows up for the Big Exposition that launches the story.
An unavoidable theme in a collection like this is the value of Faith when dealing with Adversity. This is something I’ve been pondering lately. It seems to me that “faith” is one of those words that’s been redefined for the modern audience. It used to be something that made people strong but now “Faith in Top Men” is something that makes people weak. The characters in “Monsters and Mormons” are undeniably the strong type.
“Not all people enjoy fiction”
I don’t read fiction. Except SugarFree?
Sir. Please consider the possibility that you don’t read fiction at all.
Lol
While most SF is documentary, some is clearly fiction.
Subaruyokai have completely different manifestations. All educated people agree on that.
It’s on my Amazon shopping list.
Ya know, I predicted that things would be slow here while everyone re-read M’s brilliant story.
I’m one and a half vodka highballs to the wind so I won’t re-read it now but I do remember it being really excellent.
One of the reasons I suspect I may not actually be a bona fide practitioner of my professed faith is how little comfort or strength it provides me in such circumstances. I envy those who have it.
In my own mind “faith” is “a mental foundation for strength”. Classical religion works for a lot of people and I personally am incapable of disputing other’s beliefs when it seems to me that they work.
I’m content to let anyone work out their own best way of living life – which shouldn’t require my input. Likewise, unless I ask, I don’t expect anyone to unbidden tell me how to live mine.
this is a great theme
I can’t reject materialism; I desire the longest lever reasonable on financial power and the comfort it can buy
whether doG exists remotely as conceived/revealed, I do believe that not caring is the key, turning the other cheek and lilies of the field and so on
but I care, so I’ll fight to my last breath, and other than trying to be a good neighbor, I really do nothing to prove I ever cracked the KJV
What makes a person internally mentally strong and resilient? By whatever source I think it’s a good thing.
of course
for me the course of western civilization is a backbone; the structure and jargon are just way-points, but they’re handy and comforting
but I don’t believe doG changes his mind, and yet I eat pork
The only reason that anyone criticizes Western Civilization is that it made everyone so comfortable that they were never taught enough history to understand the source of their comfort.
Most people barely think enough to sustain themselves; to sustain a culture? Ack-pflbt!
So much this. There is widespread ignorance of Enlightenment philosophy and the history it sprang from.
I love a good pork chop.
For me at least, the struggle is to believe in a personal god – the kind of guy you can pray to and not just be talking to yourself. That’s the sort of god from which a person could pull a lot of strength. The kind of god whose praises you sing while you’re getting crucified upside down, or stoned to death, or sawed in half from crotch to head. The fact that so many people met just such a death leads me to suspect there must be some truth to it, but it isn’t something I get intuitively. If I were picking a religion from scratch I’d be a deist. An impersonal, super-intelligent watchmaker kind of god who designed this whole thing just to watch it run fits with my conception of a deity perfectly. So perfectly that I suspect it has to be wrong.
One of my best friends is an honest-to-God Bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church. I am an Buddhist.[1] and don’t believe in God. We get along famously. He’s way ahead of me of bringing good beer when he comes to visit.
Footnotes:
[1] This is an article I’ve been considering for some time.
Likely so would I, had I not had it hammered into me as a child and teen. I’ve thought about this A LOT since I was a kid, and I’ve had my crises of faith and whatnot. Ultimately, I come back to a deity I can pray to and ask things of.
I have thought about it a lot too. I was on the path to Methodist divinity school. I taught Sundee School at our small church. Ultimately, I went the other way. I became agnostic.
I’m just an ol’ non-believer. I’ve looked around, tried a few different concepts, just couldn’t make it work.
Same.
Never the less I’m not the Denier! I used to be.
Lime green jello is the True Body of Christ.
Yuck.
Obviously set in the midwest.
The lime green jello story is the second-best of the collection in my humble opinion.
Nice try, winter. Throw the first snow of the season at us when it’s not even going to go below freezing tonight.
My standard U.S. Current Surface map is this:
https://s.w-x.co/staticmaps/WEB_Current_Weather_Map_1280x720.jpg
At this time I predict any snow you get will turn to slush instantly. Forgive me if I don’t feel any pain for your plight.
It sure is purdy coming down but yeah it’ll be gone by the morning.
We had a little dusting a couple days ago like that.
some sort of dust front rolled across the Mississippi this morning; the skies over Arkansas were a gray yellow like you see just before a tornado
my parents recalled Texas dust making it this far east in the fifties, a stretch that included record winters; Dad’s canteen froze on his hip at Fort Chaffee in ’57
Had to bug out (bug down?) to the basement for a while at work today, and Them As What Claim To Know About This Sort Of Thing will be perusing the effects (which, thankfully, appear to be relatively minor, at least locally,) of what blew through to determine if any of it was truly tornadic.
And our electricity is back on. 💡
I read the article every carefully and have no idea which State of the Union that tornado may have happened.
Sorry – SW OH, specifically the greater Dayton area.
The article very clearly mentions as many afflicted counties as possible. This is good bread-and-butter get-attention reporting. I can only assume that the reporter was so excited about events that he or she forgot that there’s a bigger world out there.
Well, it’s a local news station. We usually assume the rest of the world doesn’t care.
And our electricity is back on. 💡
Good.
I was at Chaffee, left about Feb, ’57. Don’t remember seeing your dad but all the GIs looked similar. A kid from MN was happy to be in Arkansas for the winter.
Basic and Second 8, I went to Supply Clerk School.
Dad was posted there in November a few days after his 17th birthday
JFC New York is still showing “get your booster now or you’ll go on a ventilator” commercials.
I thought NY sold all their ventilators at a steep discount.
Propaganda doesn’t have to make sense.
I thought ventilators killed people…
That is the threat – take the clot shot or well medically murder you another way.
It’s a threat. If you aren’t vaccinated and you end up in a hospital with covid, they’re putting you on that fucking ventilator as punishment.
Conspiracy theories are now spoiler alerts.
I am not vaxxed and I think I had the vid already so knock on wood I hope I can stay out of the hospital next time I catch it.
New York’s public health authorities hadn’t burned the last of their credibility.
So…another fun night out at my favorite local brewery.
New offer – any VA (or other glibs) feel like stopping by this area (while I’m here – sorry hobbit) – I’ll cover you – 3 drink max at Ice House.
Heading to Japan for about 3 weeks on Friday (pending negative covid test on Thurs). Looking forward to this.
Gotta slow down next month though – need to work on my glibfit routine, etc that’s really been suffering with the travel.
I’ve never fully recovered glibfit-wise from the job that had me traveling 80% of the time for 2+ years.
Gidzilla isn’t scared of The Vid.
Re: the Murdaugh trial – been following it for at least 6 months via Reasonable Doubt podcast with Carolla and Geragos. https://www.youtube.com/@ReasonableDoubtPodcast
Definitely sounded fishy at the beginning but now Dr Drew has weighed in that the opioid addiction covers pretty much all the shady shit up to the actual murders which don’t match at all. That and the coroner said 2 different weapons (rifle and shotgun) were used for the murders and they haven’t located either one yet – makes it look a lot more like an intimidation case by a mob/cartel due to unpaid debts.
NewWife nee Miss Georgia finds it all an eyeroller, just another day, guilty or no, of that family’s bullshit
I’ve got to get to Vidalia and Beaufort next month to look at some work whether he walks or swings
I have no idea if he committed those murders. He is shady as shit.
I’ve gotten sucked into watching the trial for the past week or two, and highlights before that. His description of his own state sounds more like coke than opioid, although it would explain his puffiness. That’s even if he was an addict. The amounts he was supposedly taking in both mg and number is just crazy. To me it sounds like a pat excuse for not explaining why he was stealing money and what he did with it.
I dunno about the outside killer theory, the defense hasn’t offered that up as a possible explanation. I think he’s guilty but I’m not sure if the jury will find it beyond a reasonable doubt.
Thanks, Richard! I forgot this was on tap tonight.
I just had reason to write up a short (2-page, single-spaced) treatise on Christianity 101 and the Mormon twist on it, and I can say it was actually comforting to me to write it in my own vaguely irreverent way that its recipient would understand. I’d never actually laid it out like that, and the need to distill the information was an excellent exercise.
They say if you can get a 5yo to understand something, you’ve mastered it. A 5yo wouldn’t understand it, though, so I’ll have to work on that.
@Spud … Lime Jello is an Intermountain West thing, also known as the Jello Belt
It comes with ground carrots, right? At least it does in MN. In days gone by I’d get a few packages of Jello when the Missus was traveling. Now she isn’t out and about much so I haven’t had my ration lately. When we fished Canada I was the GoTo guy for dessert. We ate Jello pudding and gelatin a lot, with Mandarin oranges slices, the boys loved it.
And pineapple. And cottage cheese. And Mandarin oranges. LOL
Oh yeah, I forgot about the pineapple. Thanks for the memories, Mojo.
Two great tastes that DON’T taste great together. 😝
Which reminds me: It has now been confirmed unequivocally and undeniably that Reese’s Cups are the GOAT of mass market candies.
Peyton said it. I believe it.
How did Snickers not win?
I believe Snickers was #3. M&Ms came in a well-deservedly close second.
The problem here is that “mass market candies” suck. I’ve been spoiled by better candies.
I wonder if they got the taste for Jell-O from the town my parents retired to. I do believe they spent some time in the area.
I thought the problem here was Peyton Manning.
Warner Bros is looking to exploit Lord Of The Rings some more and the media is painting this as some attack on Amazon’s Rings Of Power. Rings of Power isn’t going to fail because WB produces more Tolkien content. It’s failed because it fucking sucks.
Rings Of Power should have been an anthology series, but that would have taken balls and vision and creativity. And the assholes behind it were simply looking to produce the most generic woke bullshit in the fantasy genre with Lord Of The Rings as a backdrop. The material they had access to does not lend itself to a serialized drama.
Wait. I thought Rings of Power was Tolkien. No?
Rings of Power is nominally based on Tolkien, but in reality has about as much in common with it as I do that seconding whore UCS.
Shoulda based it on Bored of the Rings instead.
Consider the musical “Hamilton” to the events of the formation of the United States.
The “Rings of Power” is much worse than what Tolkien wrote.
I filed my taxes electronically about 2 weeks ago, got my MN refund back already. Good thing, hitting the grocery shopping tomorrow.
And you’re out of eggs, right?
His refund isn’t that big
Got my meager Federal in under a week. Owe the state a couple dollars.
I have it and it’s perplexing. And I understand the challenges.
This is something I’ve been pondering lately. It seems to me that “faith” is one of those words that’s been redefined for the modern audience.
Definitely.It’s been dumbed down a lot.
I love me some Mo fiction (or possibly non-fiction)
Awwwww. ❤️
The self-parody is strong in this one.
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2023/02/27/prince-harry-who-craves-privacy-to-live-stream-intimate-conversation-with-trauma-expert/
Stop paying attention to them, the world.
✔
Done
Monty Python must have had a time machine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfVKtVtTKX8
I love you guys.
😋
Hey Glibs.
Good morning!
Good morning, Sean!! Your cheerfulness is shaming me. I should be grateful for everything I have and the fact that I’m not, but I failing to do so.
*attitude adjustment*
Wheeeee!! Have a great day, everyone! Eventually we run out of great days, so carpe diem!!
Mornin’ Sean. Mprnin’ Banjos.
No wonder you guys think there are no libertarian women – you have us all muddled up together! 😉
Mornin’ Hi-X.
Mornin’ all.
How’s the apartment hunt going, HS?
Good morning, Shirley, Stinky, Sean, HE, and Penguin!
Morning.
Good morning, U! How are you today?
I overslept, but at least it’s a remote work day.
At least I’m not tired.
Not tired is good.
Unless you’re a car.
😛
😄
Good morning, GT!
Aaaaaand with that, back to bed. 🙂
Hey, Shirley! I found a place called Bay Court at Harbour Pointe. (Pinkies out for spare vowels.)
Gonna move in late March. Nice spot, not far from work.
Congrats! For me, at least, that was always the hurdle that marked the reality of a relocation. It was always satisfying, no matter how things played out from there.
https://www.apartments.com/bay-court-at-harbour-pointe-mukilteo-wa/08xf6c0/
Oh, very nice! Always liked having a fireplace. Spacious, too, from the look of the marketing anyway.
Thanks–I think i will enjoy it. Once my foot sprain is better, I intend to hit the community gym!
The apartment blew the other ones I looked at out of the water. Lots of built-in storage, even an extra storage closet off the deck/patio. And carpet is in the bedrooms only; the rest will be Swiffer town!
Morning early risers. I just want to say I enjoy the early morning banter and Sean’s links. I’m not always up early enough to enjoy them and rarely coherent enough to respond, but always fun to see!
They’ve been put on leave. Sorry.
“Canadian ‘Super Pigs’ About To Invade US, Unleash Major Damage”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/canadian-super-pigs-about-invade-us-and-unleash-major-damage
Supposedly these things have learned to build underground dens and igloos of a sort. They’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel on their panic porn.
Oh, just great! A new Cold War with ongoing escalation, trying to achieve Pig Parity. 🙄
There’s an obvious solution, pigs are delicious.
Good thing virtual reality video games can save us.
“The only people who should be worried about this is anyone who lives in North America and eats meat, or eats vegetables, or eats any foods based on grain crops, or spends time outside for any reason.”