Editorial

Three Kinds of Appropriateness

By Benson Parkinson
Co-managing Editor

Morality is a mark of Mormon literature. I don't know if it would have to be that way, but Latter-day Saint literature of most every stripe gets around to taking a moral stand. The difference is largely in the realm of appropriateness, which boils down to a sense of how sex, violence, profanity, and the sacred ought to be portrayed. Most judgments of this type are matters of taste, but these tastes are shot through with authors' and readers' moral sensibilities, which makes them difficult to talk about without casting aspersions--though that's what I'm attempting here. I don't mean to clump the different varieties together unnaturally. I doubt they can be reconciled. But basically there are only three kinds of appropriateness in Mormon literature. Fans and practitioners of the different kinds might be less judgmental if they understood each other better.

The first kind of morality in Mormon literature is the "completely appropriate." This kind seeks to be appropriate in every way. Some of these works duplicate the conventions of national genre fiction while toning the sex, violence, and swearing down to pre-1970s television levels, and broach the sacred with great deference or frequently not at all. Others focus more deeply on Mormon characters, issues, and spirituality. This is probably the most popular of the three kinds of LDS literature, at least in number of titles. Several books in this category, such as Richard Paul Evans's The Christmas Box, have been national bestsellers. Others aimed at the LDS market, most notably Gerald N. Lund's Work and the Glory series, have sold in excess of all but the most runaway national bestsellers.

If I had to choose a mascot for this type, I'd pick a cocker spaniel or some other family-friendly breed. That's not to say it's so tame as to be lifeless. Completely appropriate fiction is increasingly willing to look evil in the face and portray all manner of sinful behavior, though never graphically or in a way that readers would find tempting. Primary characters behave and think as they ought to and fret over even minor failings. That's because its readers identify strongly and want to believe that the characters' good-heartedness and obedience will bring them through. When a character strays, it can be as stressful to these readers as if a friend had done so. Too much of that would overwhelm a novel, though fans and writers recognize you need enough to make the story go.

The second kind of Mormon literature is the "broadly appropriate." This kind tries to be true to a mainstream vision of the gospel while acknowledging the complex mix of good and evil that exists in the world. This may be the category with the most potential to break Mormon literature out of niche status. Traditionally at least, the sort of slow-selling but long-lived books that wind up being studied in college courses are in this mode. Douglas Thayer's Under the Cottonwoods is an example of fiction for LDS readers in this category. An example of fiction for readers at large is the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card.

The mascot for this kind of writing would be a border collie or some other intelligent, agile working breed. These books are willing to depict sex or violence or bad language if there's literary justification, though frequently less than in comparable works by non-LDS writers. By contrast, they're more willing than most non-LDS writing to confront the sacred head-on. The broadly appropriate shows evil as attractive in order to make its attraction comprehensible. Characters think all manner of thoughts and fret precious little about their failings because they're not aware of most of them. Its readers identify with characters less strongly but study them more intently. Often the point of a book is to learn compassion by coming to grips with the complexity of a character's situation. Often the emphasis is on agency--focusing on a sin or flaw in order to follow it through to its logical conclusion.

The third kind of moral literature is the "shockingly appropriate." This kind tries to be true to its own often counterintuitive sense of gospel values while violating, for artistic impact, the average gospel believer's sense of propriety. Shockingly appropriate Mormon literature has relatively small audiences but is probably the most in sync with national literary tastes and has thus far received the most scholarly attention. Brian Evenson and Levi Peterson are two prominent fiction writers in this category, and one could also mention Neil LaBute's dramas and films.

The mascot for the shockingly appropriate would be the coyote, lone and wily, seen by some as a harmful enemy and others as a romantic character or a useful friend. In shockingly appropriate writing, nothing is sacred, at least at first glance, and violence, sexuality, profanity, and every manner of evil may abound. Characters wallow in degradation, or revel in perversion, and the book may celebrate either or both. The shockingly appropriate violates every convention, every expectation, in order to set the reader up for the big punch: humans of every description have innate value, or good can prevail, or God's grace is sufficient. Values like these transcend all the little ones the book pillories along the way.

One way to point up the differences between these three kinds of writing is to draw the distinction between what the book says and what its characters say. Neither book nor characters in completely appropriate literature say inappropriate things. Because of this, fans of the other kinds, when they say "completely appropriate," mean it sarcastically, though it's a badge this kind wears with pride. After all, can one be "too good"?

The characters in broadly appropriate literature say inappropriate things all the time, but the books never do. Fans of the other kinds typically find this kind too "broad" on the one hand, or too "appropriate" on the other. But this kind doesn't apologize for finding truth abroad, or for serving the cause at home.

That leaves the shockingly appropriate, in which both books and characters say inappropriate things incessantly, except for the thing that finally matters. Fans of the other kinds find this desire to shock a little juvenile, or downright evil. But if people are disturbed, fans of the shockingly appropriate reason, they need a little disturbing.

The LDS Church in its occasional creative offerings sticks to the completely appropriate, and this is true of mainstream LDS magazines and publishers generally. My sense in talking to the people who work for these organizations is that they're not necessarily opposed to the other kinds (or at least the broadly appropriate), but their viewers and readers are so keyed to the issue of implied endorsement that they won't tolerate any other kind. For the Ensign and Bookcraft, that means they can't promote cultural change without spawning contention, which pretty well goes against their reason for being. For independents like Covenant, it means they can't make money any other way.

When regional or national arts organizations, universities, or publishers promote Mormon literature, it tends to be the shockingly appropriate. The publishers can't afford to push too hard against their secular readers' prejudices. At universities and arts councils, church-state and multicultural considerations produce the same result. Meanwhile intellectually oriented LDS outlets like Sunstone and Signature seem to slide inexorably toward the shockingly appropriate, no doubt because of the polarizing effect of that kind of writing.

Institutional and market support for the broadly appropriate has been thin in the past. BYU is the logical institutional sponsor, yet for years BYU has vacillated between welcoming shockingly appropriate LDS literature and throwing it out the door. BYU needs to excel academically, and there is only so much it can do with the completely appropriate because of this kind's lack of sophistication. But BYU must also serve the ends of its sponsoring institution as defined by its board of trustees, and the Church will likely never be comfortable with literature that so often seems at odds with those ends. The drama department, with its regular offerings by Eric Samuelsen and Tim Slover, seems to have embraced the broadly appropriate. The rest of the university should follow suit with fiction. That's the only kind that can thrive in that tight spot because its goals are the same--to scour the earth for all that's good, and shore up faith at home.

Mainstream LDS publishers have been experimenting with the broadly appropriate (Bookcraft with Dean Hughes, Covenant with Marilyn Arnold), and hopefully we can expect more from them. This People seemed to be developing into a broadly appropriate organ, though for a year or two the magazine has been tied up in litigation. One hungry young upstart, Irreantum, publishes as much short LDS fiction as anyone right now. Editorially speaking, Irreantum favors the broadly appropriate, though like our sponsor, the Association for Mormon Letters, we seek to promote all three kinds. But broadly appropriate is the most underdeveloped, both in terms of what's available and who's reading. That's the kind most likely to draw large numbers of intelligent, committed LDS readers to Mormon letters. And that's good for Mormon literature of every kind.

Benson Parkinson, co-managing editor of Irreantum, founded AML-List, the AML's Internet discusion list, and served as its moderator during its first five years. He is the author of two novels, The MTC: Set Apart (Aspen, 1995), and its sequel, Into the Field (Aspen, 2000). He and his wife Robin live with their five children in South Ogden, Utah.