I finished Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven.
Although it was not the anti-Mormon diatribe I first took it to be, it wasn't much of anything. He didn't resolve anything. He didn't really conclude anything. All he ends up saying is that there are some religious nutcases out there who are sincere in their religious fanaticism and who are able to kill without remorse: justifying their killing as being dictated by revelation and by God.
He begins and ends the story with the Laffertys: the infamous brothers convicted of killing their sister-in-law and her baby. Because the Laffertys are polygamists, he also ties polygamy into the narrative.
If Under the Banner of Heaven focused only on the polygamist sects then it would be an honest read. If it focused only on religious killings it would be an honest read. If it focused on early-Mormon Church history it might even be at least one view of history. Instead, Krakauer takes too much on: trying to show that the motivation for the Laffertys killings can be linked to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.
He can't pull it off.
That being said, there is much "dark" Mormon Church history that Krakauer digs up which is probably true. It reads truly and it makes sense. A lot of that I had never heard before. On the other hand, there's a lot of history where he makes conspiratory allusions and conjectures. This is no history book. Nor is it psychological.
If Krakauer truly wanted to write a good book about the Lafferty brothers, he should have done it from the psychological angle: talking about how killers can use religion to justify their actions...and how delusions can lead to killing. But to link murder to one of the most conservative religions in the world is rather melodramatic.
7 years ago
6 comments:
I'm glad you finished it, but I have to disagree a little with some of your conclusions. First, I don't think Krakauer HAD to conclude anything. He was telling a story, writing a narrative. I don't think he did it in hhis other novels, and you've enjoyed those from what I understand.
Second, if an honest read entails a strict separation of various aspects of a character and his/her history, I think there is no such thing...an impossible task, really. The lines are fuzzy. He's got to explain where the Laffertys are coming from....their background. Polygamy is a part of the story. The Laffertys were getting involved with it. He takes a lot on, but I don't see how he could avoid some of these things in a probing narrative about the Laffertys without being dishonest in the process.
Thirdly, I don't think Kraukauer is trying to link, in cause/effect fashion, the Lafferty murders to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I think he tries to show where the Laffertys are coming from with regard to the religious traditions of the West, and B.Y. and J.S. happen to be a huge part of that history.
Forth, Kraukauer does not claim to be a historian. He writes about extremes and subjects that fascinate him on a "subjective" level. He is candid about this.
Also, I think that he did talk quite a lot about how killers can use religion to justify their actions, and how delusions can lead to killing. He probably could have taken this further, but as you said, he was already taking a lot on.
My opinion is that you're not looking at it as objectively as you could...you seem very defensive. Mormonism is not exactly conservative, either. It's got quite a history, and you can't escape that. That does not mean that most of its leaders and members are not great people. The fact is that their IS a link. Its not a direct link by ANY means, but the Lafferty's Mormon histories DID have an impact on how they molded their delusions to justify themselves, and it does not make the Mormon church itself a bad thing. JD was in the Navy, and his history with the navy shapes the way he interprets his situations and composes his explanations (sometimes delusions) of the world. This is unavoidable.
Let me put it this way. Suppose the Laffertys had been raised in an intensely dedicated family of "moonies." They go on to carry out their murders with moonie-shaped paradigms feeding some of their ideas. If Kraukauer were to write about these characters, he would have to explain their religious upbringing and background, as it is not as obvious as something like Catholicism.
And isn't melodrama the point?
Perhaps I'll read it again one of these days and investigate these "conspiratory allusions and conjectures." I didnt pick up much on that while reading it, but I was not watching for it either, so I'll have to investigate further.
i also wanted to add that i realize i have my own level of bias in that i left the LDS church several years ago. however, i take it for what it is today, and harbor no ill will toward its members. (i love and respect many of them, despite our differences of opinion regarding the technicalities of spirituality as it is constructed/defined by religious organizations.) after reading this book, i was not led to conclude that the lds church was responsible in any way shape or form for the Laffertys' appalling behavior, and i don't think anyone reading the book who does not know as much about mormonism would come to a dissimilar conclusion.
By the way, Chrissa is actually Mormon -- but she's a Democrat, so you'll have to excuse her.
(She hasn't seen the Republican light, so to speak)
bwwwaaa haaa
I will also admit to my bias and that I was defensive when I read the book. I didn't come to all of these conclusions until I started reading a history book about Joseph Smith and the early Mormon Church.
Like I said, I was a history major. So as I read the book I was thinking: "Is this true? Is this true?" because he kept dredging up aspects of Church history in a very insinuating manner (for example: in one part he talks about how early Church critics and government officials were silenced out of fear of being killed by Orrin Porter Rockwell -- Joseph Smith's friend who was also a notorious outlaw -- as an undocumented number did. I'm paraphrasing, but that's what he said. Well...if it's undocumented, how does he know? A lot of his book is insinuation and phrases out of context.
So yeah, you're right: he's no historian and probably doesn't claim to be. But he claims his book is accurate.
i saw porter rockwell's cabin in eureka today. crazy.
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