What Makes a Great Story...Or the Marginalization of Mormon Writers by The New York Times

I want to start out by confessing that I don’t read literary fiction.  I know right there that I have lost all credibility with Mark Oppenheimer, the author of this New York Times article that I’m going to discuss shortly, but I’m okay with that.  I, however, have read many books and plays that are brilliant, important, and profound.  Most of these have been classics, so I'm not sure what literary critics think are important contemporary stories.  But I think we all know what makes a story truly great.
 

I came across this New York Times article recently which discusses the failure of Mormon writers to produce any works of literary value and speculates if the LDS culture “militates against highbrow writing.”

I’m not going to discuss the article’s subtle jabs at the LDS culture or its sweeping generalizations of a very large group of people (Just because one man’s parents told him to only write about happy things in his journals doesn’t mean that all or even most Mormons follow that or have that same mentality.  Or that bookish young Mormons will gravitate towards Mormon authors instead of just reading books that interest them).  Okay, I might touch on those issues slightly, but what I want to mainly focus on is what makes a story great.
 

The article makes this statement as a reason Mormon writers don’t write more important, critically acclaimed literary novels.
 

“But there is a specifically Mormon logic to the trend, too.  Realist literature for adults often includes aspects of adult life like sex and drinking, and the convention is to describe them without judgment, without moralizing.  By writing for children and young adults—or in genres popular with young people—one can avoid such topics. Mormon authors can thus have their morals and their books sales, too.”
 

Now this is where I have the biggest problem with this article.  If I am understanding this correctly, highbrow, important literature tends to be realist literature for adults with a specific (causal or nonjudgmental) view on sex and drinking.
 

First of all, once again a sweeping generalization that Mormon writers won’t or can’t write this type of book.  They can write about sex and drinking without preaching if they want to, and they won’t get excommunicated for it either.

Second of all, isn’t this saying that important, highbrow literature needs to fit a specific world view?  I know nihilistic and realist aren't the same thing, but it seems to me that those lines can blur. If a story seems positive or hopeful in any way does that automatically make it idealistic?  If someone has a nihilistic world view, then isn’t it possible that any non-nihilistic point of view may seem romanticized to him?
 

And furthermore, why is a realist literature inherently superior?  Some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays were comedies, such as Twelfth Night and Midsummer’s Night Dream, and they weren’t any less profound than Othello or Hamlet even though they displayed more idealistic and romanticized views.

Finally, sex and drinking are not essential to every adult themed plot, and if an author chooses to include them, any attitude towards them that the author chooses to use is valid.

 

We all have our own world view, and they are all deeply flawed in some way. Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but what I see from this article is that Oppenheimer’s perceived Mormon world view (ignoring the fact that Mormon’s are individual people and that each of their own individual world views) isn’t valid. That Mormons are naïve, idealistic, and out of touch with reality. That their world view can’t be used to write important literature.

In other words, it seems to me that Oppenheimer is saying that only people who think like him have important things to say.
 

The greatest thing about literature to me is that it opens up the world to us.  That it can show us others' perspectives.  That it can help us understand each other.  I think that is the value of a really great story; that it makes you think and see something in a different way.   


Every world view is valid.  You don’t have to accept it or even like it, but it does have worth and the ability to show you something new if you let it. 

The problem is that those great, profound stories are just so rare.  They are the work of true geniuses who are able to craft a powerful story with pure, unflinching honesty.
 

I’m not sure if a Mormon writer has achieved this yet, but I haven’t read every book written by Mormons.  Even if no one has, that doesn’t mean we are hampered by our culture, just that true geniuses are rare.

~MaryAnn